Role Models

Name:
Karin

Title:
Industrial Hygienist  -- someone who tries to make jobs safer,
especially from chemicals, noise, and other hazards to keep workers
healthy on the job and after they retire.  She tries to prevent
cancers, hearing loss,  work-related illnesses and death.

Path:
When I was 16, I wanted to be a doctor that designed prosthetics
that looked and worked like real limbs (maybe because of the old
TV show $6 Million Man).  But I found out that the medical schools
were interested mostly in people that wanted to use stethoscopes
and tongue depressors and prescribe medicine, not fix things.  I
looked around for a profession that would combine my interest in
helping people with my skills in physiology and engineering.
Industrial hygiene (IH) does all of these things, even though I
had never heard of it before.  Being an IH means practicing PREVENTIVE
medicine.

Comments:
You need to like to work with people.  Workers who trust you and
feel that you are genuinely concerned for their health will accept
your help improving their job.

You also need to work hard in math and science while you're in
school.  IH covers all different areas of science:  biology, physics,
and lots of chemistry.