Catherine DuPont

Catherine DuPont

Kinesiology seems like an easy match for varsity volleyball player Catherine DuPont. After all, her affinity for sports and physical fitness is readily apparent. But Catherine’s interests also have led her to pursue the opportunity to diversify her degree by choosing more than one major.

“I always knew I wanted to do something in the healthcare or medical field,” says Catherine, “but it wasn’t until I got to Rice and actually started checking some stuff out that I realized how diverse that field is. I decided as a freshman to focus on being a kinesiology major, and I also focused on a Spanish major. I added the Spanish because I had a vision of being fluent in both Spanish and English since that offered an advantage in my home state of Florida as well as in Texas.”

But Catherine quickly received opportunities outside the classroom that allowed her to become fairly fluent in Spanish. With the help of one of her volleyball coaches, Catherine had the chance to travel to Argentina twice during her summers at Rice to work on her volleyball skills while being immersed in a Spanish-speaking environment.

“Now,” she says, “I have dropped Spanish as a major, although I have a pretty good grasp on speaking it and hope to continue to take some classes in the future. Last year, I took an intro to psychology class and realized—yes, in an intro class—that I was really interested in this area. I added that as a major last year, and I am really enjoying the classes that I have taken so far. No classes have changed the direction of my study, but some have really reinforced my decision,” she says. “One class I am in right now, social psychology, is really amazing. Dr. Mikki Hebl is the only professor that I am happy to get up for at 8 a.m. Another class that I really enjoyed was a motor skills and learning class taught by Dr. Bruce Etnyre. Both these classes were influential to me because they were directly applicable to my life. What I am learning in class I see in both psychological and physical day-to-day events. Experiencing what I am learning is so neat to me, and because it relates to my actual life, learning it is really interesting. I am excited to finally be taking these upper-level classes in kinesiology and psychology, so I am sure there are more influential classes to come now that I am done with my intro classes, math, and sciences.

“I am pretty certain that I am going to take these majors and go on to graduate school for physical therapy,” Catherine adds. “I am really interested in the rehabilitative medicine that’s associated with hospitals more than I am with athletics. Again, in physical therapy there are tons of avenues to pursue, so I am hoping to get some experience this summer at the Texas Medical Center.”