Lessons in balance motivate student

theresa.hogue@oregonstate.edu — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:15:41 +0000

How does pre-med student Nicolette O’Donnell manage school, obligations to the Kappa Delta sorority and the University Honors College, plus elite dance team practice?
“I have a color-coded planner,” she jokes. “I am content with my life. I know that I do the best I can.”
With the support of family, friends and her adviser, Kevin Ahern, O’Donnell feels that she has learned essential lessons in balance.
“Kevin has always told me not to overload myself,” O’Donnell says. “He motivates me to understand what the next steps are and how to build essential relationships.”
Ahern and O’Donnell like to say she is abolishing the science-nerd stereotype. “I am proud to be a science student but that is not my label,” O’Donnell says. “I am myself.”
Demonstrating her varying areas of interest, O’Donnell chose the emotional development in poetry as her senior thesis topic for the University Honors College.
“I have a passion for poetry,” O’Donnell says. “Why not pursue that as well?”
O’Donnell gives credit to Ahern for helping to guide her through what have been “very good years” at OSU.
“He always asks how I am doing and I know that he really is interested in what is going on,” O’Donnell says. “He genuinely cares about students.”
O’Donnell hopes to pursue a career in dermatology and Ahern has no doubt that medical school is in her near future.
“Learning at what level you can operate and still do your best is something that takes a while but is essential to learn,” Ahern says.
“I would point to Nicolette as someone who has managed that without question.”
~ by Tara Pistorese

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Lessons in balance motivate student