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Katie spent her first year working with the Ducks Intercollegiate Football team. She came to the UO from Concordia University in Quebec, Canada. Katie will begin her second year working with the Intercollegiate Softball team. Katie is currently researching the effect of impact forces in football linemen on the vertebral bodies in the lumbar spine.

What insight about graduate school do you now have that you wish you had when you were applying to graduate programs?

Too often I feel we focus on the perfect Grad school -- the best research and athletic facilities, the nicest campus, the best location, the school’s reputation, the success and prominence of the athletic teams, and the position that we're offered. However, we fail to see what will actually make the greatest impact on our personal successes and experiences -- the people. While it is difficult to judge this important factor prior to attending the university, the emphasis on visiting or at least talking to the people with whom you will be working, including current students, is of utmost importance. For, when we look back on our experiences, it really won’t matter whether or not our team had a losing record, or how far we had to travel to go home over Christmas break. We will remember the people we met, the professors, trainers and advisors who influenced us and the friends who supported us.

The academic programs that are offered are very different from one grad school to another. Find out what interests you, and then look at the classes. Don’t arrive at grad school, start attending class and say, "Geez, I’m really not interested in any of these areas." Or "I really wish I could be learning this."

What would you tell an applicant to ensure their expectations about our program were as accurate as possible?

There is tremendous academic support with an emphasis to achieve a balance between your GTF position and your education at the U of O. Too often we joke that student athletes aren’t really students first, but I really feel like I’m here to learn and do research, and not just to be put to work.

While you will have great support for your research here, if that is what you choose to do, you won’t be persuaded to go in any certain direction with it. Some schools like to get their grad students to continue in the school’s area of research, but here, it’s wide open. Get an idea and run with it. It can be your project, not just a piece of someone else’s.

Do you believe that you are (or will be) a better athletic trainer because of the academic and/or clinical experiences you are obtaining as a member of this program?

While the U of O offers courses covering the physiological aspects of athletic training, the manual therapy classes have given us not only numerous tools to use in the clinic, but a different approach to treatment as well. By bringing in various professionals to teach these classes, a wide variety of perspectives, philosophies and approaches have been afforded to us.