My 2013 Career Change Scholarship Essay

At the beginning of my first semester of chiropractic school, I learned of a scholarship available to “non-traditional students”–a.k.a. older students who weren’t matriculating immediately after an undergraduate program. This certainly applied to me, so I took the opportunity and was privileged to be selected as a recipient.¹

Prompt: Please reflect on your professional experience working in your former field, and describe what has inspired you to embark on a career in chiropractic.

In 1912, the average American high-school student would have two choices: begin a lifelong career in a family trade or, if more fortunate, continue on to college before beginning a lifelong career in a less labor intensive business. In the one hundred years since then, advances in the American economy, especially technology, have changed the quality and outlook of life for those graduating from high school and college today. A lifelong career in the family business or even in any one trade is not considered normal. The jobs that were common 100 years ago are now specialized fields, while the jobs of tomorrow are largely unknown.

My great-grandfather was an immigrant from Mexico, born of Spanish parents just before the turn of the century. I was born fifty years after he died, but have followed a path similar to his early life. An outlier in his era, he held a number of careers throughout his life, most notably as a trapeze artist in the traveling circus and later as an auto mechanic in Houston, Texas. After graduating from college, I postponed my long held plan to attend chiropractic college to pursue two of my other passions: ballroom dancing and computer technology. It seems my great-grandfather and I both had an inclination to travel, perform, and tinker with the latest technology available to us. Just as he did when he found the young Swiss girl he would marry, I have decided that it is time for me to embrace a desire that has been a constant drive in my life–to improve individuals’ quality of life through hands on care. My parallel careers for the past two years have given me experiences and lessons that will guide me through the next endeavor.

Information Technology

My main job for the past two years has been as the media technician for the Utah Personnel Development Center, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The UPDC is a non-profit organization comprising 15 former educators and administrators who prepare professional development programs for teachers throughout the state of Utah. I assist these specialists with their technology needs, from how to properly use their iPhone to teaching them how to design effective presentation slides. I also serve as their media specialist which has included designing flyers and program booklets for their events, facilitating online meetings, recording video interviews with national research experts, and creating short films to highlight successful teachers and districts. I have learned two things that I hope to apply in my future practice. First is the importance of evidence based practices. Second, that what is important and obvious to one person may be a new revelation to others.

Dance

My second career developed from a hobby during my undergraduate studies. I took a social dance class for personal enrichment as a sophomore and, while I initially struggled and had two left feet, I soon fell in love with the art and progressed rapidly. I began performing with the 29-year undefeated champions in formation team dancing. We traveled across the country and went to the United Kingdom to compete in the world championships. I also competed successfully in national events and was once heralded as “a vision of masculine dancing” by a national critic. But dancing captured my fascination not because of the glamour and posh, but because of the intellectual and physical challenge of learning to gain awareness and control of the body in new ways. I was intrigued by the different ways we can move our joints in combination with balance and coordination to produce an aesthetic result that appears effortless.

I decided to share my knowledge by teaching dance lessons in the evenings and challenged myself further by competing at a professional level. I took an intensive course and was certified by the International Society of Teachers of Dance in the International Ballroom style which qualifies me to teach around the world and to judge competitions.

Teaching and competing has been challenging in both physical and emotional ways and has taught me two important truths. First, not everyone pursues hobbies with the same zeal and commitment – some people enjoy dancing just for fun. Others commit astonishing amounts of time and money to become the best 88-year-old female dancer in California. Second, no matter what the skill or coordination level someone has, there are myriad opportunities to improve your quality of life and stay healthy.

Movement first

I happened to fall in love with ballroom dancing during college, but I have also enjoyed other sports for extended periods of time such as soccer, trail running, mountain biking, hiking, and swimming. If none of those appeal to someone, then there is yoga, tai chi, karate, belly dancing, break dancing, basketball, golf, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, gymnastics, figure skating, and more! I’ve realized that the human race is creative and adventurous. We have managed to develop nearly countless ways to fulfill one of the most important habits we need to stay healthy: to move!

It is this necessity to move that has inspired me to revisit my original goal to attend chiropractic school. Through these experiences during the past two years, along with previous experiences over my lifetime, I see a trend of people (including myself) reducing the amount of movement in their lives. As I sit at my computer all day, focused and engaged in my recent projects, I forget to get up and move about. In my interactions with teachers and other educators, I have begun to notice the impressive degree to which they are focused on their students and yet end up neglecting their own health.

All around us we see devices and furniture that encourage us to sit and be stationary rather than to get up and move around. From a very early age, children are being taught this very same thing when they enter the classroom. Most of us don’t think about the short and long term effects that this lifestyle has on us. The change in our circulation, the decreased metabolic rate, the muscular atrophy that ensues – all of these things draw us further and further away from health. When I began to dance, though, all of those things were reversed. The effects weren’t just physical; my emotions improved overall and I gained new friendships.

I fully realize that dance is not a panacea nor is it the only way to move. I have gained similar results as I’ve taken up trail running and swimming. The important factor is to help the body utilize a greater amount of its range of motion to reach a greater quality of life.

However, despite all of the wondrous advances in health and technology, there remain a slew of obstacles that make it difficult for people to bring more movement into their lives. Injuries, chronic pain, and fear of the unknown are just a few. As a chiropractor, I want to be able to help others get past those fears.

I began to address some of these issues for myself recently by becoming certified as a Wilderness First Responder. Gaining the knowledge of how to prevent and treat injuries outside of a clinic gave me the courage to continue pushing the limits of my comfort outdoors. It gave me the confidence to be a source of reassurance for those in desperate circumstances. It also made me aware that knowledge is a key component of being able to confidently help others. I hope that the knowledge I will gain in chiropractic school, combined with my professional experiences in education, technology, and dance, will allow me to improve the quality of life of my patients through hands on care.

I think it was for $500 which, in retrospect, feels like a minuscule amount compared to tuition. Then again, at the end of your loan period, it would amount to nearly $2,000, so maybe it was worth it? ↩︎