DIII Senior Spotlight: The Road Less Traveled

by Hannah Saiz 0

November 17th, 2014 College, NCAA Division III, News

Know Thyself

Danielle Rodriguez

Mount Saint Mary College Senior Danielle Rodriguez (Image courtesy of MSMC Athletics)

Mount Saint Mary College senior Danielle Rodriguez knows a bit about figuring out what she needs or wants and then doggedly pursuing it. She began college life as a double major in nursing and pre-med, fixated on the two careers she thought she would be interested in pursuing.

“I started the nursing program, and I did enjoy it,” Rodriguez said. “It gave me a lot of appreciation for everyone in the field and how they contribute, but at the same time I decided that nursing is not really the route for me.” With one choice eliminated, it would seem an easy option to simply run with pre-med, eventually going on to become a doctor.

Not for Rodriguez.

“I actually went and took my MCATs this past summer, and it was just prior to taking my MCATs that I kind of had the realization that I didn’t want to spend my 20s in med school,” she said. “The idea of the life I wanted to lead didn’t correlate to actually going to med school.” Knowing herself – and knowing that after many additional years of schooling she would want to settle down rather than travel or explore other interests – Rodriguez opted to abandon the pre-set plan and explore another option.

“I have to think about my life goals and what I want out of my life. I decided med school wasn’t realistic.” This realization hit on the heels of two and a half years of working in the ER. “[Working in the ER] made me rethink my decision and it’s made me come to the conclusion that PA school is what’s for me. It’s two years, and you have the opportunity right off the bat to go and work in any field.” The fluidity of the field also is appealing, as Rodriguez pointed out that a doctor looking to switch fields must repeat three years of residency before changing specialties.

“I didn’t go the traditional route of ‘Since five years old I’ve always wanted to do this!’” Rodriguez admitted. “But I thought it through and I’m very happy with the decision I’ve made.”

With all her science-y background, Rodriguez has spent a lot of time in the lab doing work. She is involved with a program through the Mount known as SURE: Summer Undergrad Research  Experience. Rodriguez’ work was with OxyVita – a company working on a cutting edge blood substitute – for ten weeks over the summer.

“OxyVita is a company that is actually based out of New Windsor, [New York], and they make a blood substitute compound called OxyVita that is essentially a blood substitute made out of hemoglobin from a cow. What we did is develop a detection method for the compound,” Rodriguez explained.

How?

By spending a lot of time in the lab. “We have a little sample of our OxyVita compound, and we also have different antibodies that we bought from different vendors,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll coat the ELISA plates with our compound and then I have a 24-hour wait period to make sure it binds to the plate, so the following day is when most of the work gets done.”

And work involves waiting. Rodriguez rattled off a laundry list of tasks that ended up amounting to about an eight hour day spend in the lab, checking on the plates on and off. “We found that our antibodies that we had detected human hemoglobin and cow hemoglobin.” That was problematic because the antibodies didn’t distinguish between them, which was the whole point of drawing blood to determine the content.

“So what we’re doing this semester is we’re planning on going up to the University of Rochester. They agreed to work with us to develop what is called a monoclonal antibody, which is an antibody that specifically detects just the OxyVita compound and not the human hemoglobin.”

All of this might be difficult enough if Rodriguez was just another student. She’s not. Rodriguez is a captain of the swim team at MSMC and has all the responsibilities that come with being a senior on the team. “It was hard the last few years because I was commuting from further away, about thirty minutes,” she said. Now, with an apartment nearer campus, she’s excited to be around for more team events.

The past year was also difficult with a battle most college athletes don’t need to think about facing. “Not this past summer but the summer prior, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and I had to get surgery,” Rodriguez said. “Going into [my junior year] my goals had been just to get back to where I had been the year prior, and make sure I was healthy.”

Not only did Rodriguez finish last season strong and healthy, she went one better and reset all her personal records. “This year, that’s definitely another goal for me,” she said. “To prove to myself there is nothing limiting me, and I can beat all my own personal records, but also focus on the team and encouraging everyone else to do the same.”

Busy as a Bee

Randy Dunton

Keene State College Senior Randy Dunton (Image courtesy of Keene Athletics)

Keene State senior Randy Dunton is perhaps one of the busiest student-athletes you could run across on campus. Beyond working multiple jobs to pay for college, he also is a double major, volunteers with the local elementary school and – of course – swims.

“I’m a dual major in math and economics, and I’m looking to go get my Masters,” Dunton said. “Either a Masters in education or they also have a masters of arts in teaching. Just something to get me a teaching certification because I’d like to teach high school and coach swimming on the side.”

While Dunton didn’t enter Keene intending to go into teaching – and he still hasn’t taken an education course through his college – he said t hat everything he’s done up until this point has all felt like it was pushing him towards teaching. As a high schooler, Dunton was homeschooled, but swam and competed with the local high school.

“My aunt was my high school coach,” Dunton said. “She would have me help a lot of the newer people. I would help them and then I would swim my practices with my club team.” Additionally, Dunton also noted that he’s been teaching swim lessons since he turned sixteen. “Everything I’ve kind of done has always kind of been towards teaching in some aspect and is also the reason I’ve decided to go towards teaching as a career,” Dunto said.

As a math tutor and a teacher’s assistant for math classes, as well as a member of math club and as president of the Math Honor Society, Dunton has had plenty of time to test-drive this passion for education in the classroom as well as in the pool. “I’ve been told if you’re going into teaching, having a math degree is really good because there’s a shortage of math teachers,” Dunton said. “I haven’t really taken education courses here because it wasn’t something I decided until my last semester – so the spring of my junior year, so by then it was too late to start on any education courses. I have my courses planned out for the rest of the year to get all my requirements done for my majors.”

In the pool this year, Dunton also will be serving as the lone senior for Keene State’s men’s team. “I’ve been telling a lot of the juniors, ‘I’m relying on you guys to help me lead these guys.’ It’s hard to do by yourself,” he said.

For this year, Dunton’s personal goal is to make the NCAA squad individually. “Sophomore year I had one B cut and last year I had two, and was just off in my 200 IM,” he explained. “We lost a lot of seniors last year, and they were really talented. We have a very sound freshmen class, and pretty much everyone we had last year is returning. So I’m hoping we can keep our standing [at the NCAA meet] from last year.”

Not only is Dunton looking to help his team to success in the water, but he’s also engaged in trying to get the team more involved in community service activities around campus as well. There’s a program called “Green Up Team” that does street cleaning – just picking up trash. There’s also “Running Club” – a partnership with a local elementary school as an after school program working to get kids active.

“I didn’t get to do it last year, but I did it freshman and sophomore year, and I’ll get to do it again this year,” Dunton said. “I feel like being at a smaller school, you get a little more involved with the community stuff.”

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About Hannah Saiz

Hannah Saiz fell into a pool at age eleven and hasn't climbed out since. She attended Kenyon College, won an individual national title in the 2013 NCAA 200 butterfly, and post-graduation has seen no reason to exit the natatorium. Her quest for continued chlorine over-exposure has taken her to Wisconsin …

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