Real Insights from Real Students on Their Majors
Today we hear from Rowan students as they explain what their major is. Because, let’s be honest, we need to hear the real deal from students themselves. Here’s insight on some really cool things that you probably never heard of or considered, but might spark you to make a solid life choice … and you’ll be able to explain to your relatives what exactly your major is.
Story updated November 2023.
“Environmental and sustainability studies focuses on us as a society and why we are not making the changes to step in the right direction regarding environmental sustainability. Regarding the ground field work we do, we collect data to determine how extreme the environment is changing and how quickly change is happening. Grads are set up to work in many fields. The sustainability field, in general, is exploding. But unfortunately, there are not enough qualified people to fill the positions that need to be filled if we’re concerned about the planet’s future.
Rowan sets you up to do field work, a researcher working on NEPA, an analysis, or things like that, or they set you up to work in a government organization with urban planning and sustainability concepts in mind. You have a wide range of job opportunities focusing on sustainability. I genuinely believe this will be a massive career field in the future,” says Zachary Rouhas, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Environment & Sustainability Studies and a masters’ degree in Sustainable Business. through an accelerated 4+1 program, the first of its kind in the state.
“The easiest way to describe athletic training is that we are the sports medicine professionals who assist athletes in injury rehabilitation. We all specialize in the prevention and emergency care — we do a lot of paperwork — but we are the guys you see on the sideline of a football game. I feel like that’s the most of the easiest way to put it.
I love how the role athletic trainers play in the lives of the athletes they work with is continuous. I like to be there every step of the way. It’s not a job where I’m in an office all day. With this job, we are involved with initial symptoms and injury prevention and recovery, return to play, and the mental and physical components of being a player who came back from injury. I remember my junior year here when I started my clinical assignment; on my first day in the facility, I worked with women’s basketball and men’s and women’s swimming and diving and helped out with football because they were beginning preseason,” says Samantha Santos, from Elmer, NJ (Gloucester County), who will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training Studies and a Master of Science in Athletic Training.
“I’m interested in artist management. I’ve always enjoyed helping people, and I’ve taken that aspect of my personality and translated it to music. Music is one of my passions; I used to sing throughout middle school and high school. I kind of just merged the two into this field of managing artists, getting their music out there for fans to discover them and make sure those fans stay to support them. That’s my dream job, but I’m content with anything within the music industry.“
“Translational biological sciences is essentially a lot like a biology degree, but it incorporates a lot of research. It focuses on combining clinical work with bench work. The major is really aimed towards people who are maybe premedical or who will be obtaining an M.D. or M.D.-Ph.D. after their undergraduate studies.
I work with Dr. Keck on campus and that is in the The Department of Molecular & Cellular Biosciences (MCB). Basically in our lab, I work on the vitro side of things so that is going to be the molecular work. We test novel drugs on different dopamine receptors to see how well that they bind to them. In other words, how well the drug is working. We do this with different doses and different types of drugs, and these drugs are going to hopefully be used to treat neurological disorders like addictions or Parkinsons. Right now, we are finished with our data collecting stage and we are in our writing work stage. This means that we are in the process of crunching numbers and figuring out what is exactly working the best according to the data we collected,” says Abigail Muccili from Iselin, NJ (Middlesex County.)
“Working to plan for emergencies and respond to hurricanes or other disasters,” is how Kevin McCarthy of Cranford, NJ (Union County) describes his Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Management major. “My professor, Dr. Len Clark, said that it’s like being a general without an army. You’re making the plans and you’re in charge during the emergency, the police, the firefighters, the EMS. You’re working with their respective leads and coordinating an ‘all-hazards’ approach. If there’s a hurricane coming, you have to work with DPW, EMS, the fire department, the police department evacuating people, and preparing the town with sandbags,” he continues.
“Engineering Entrepreneurship is equitable to other engineering majors. The only difference is that the Engineering Entrepreneurship major incorporates more business-based classes where the other majors focus more on the deeper-based sciences. My major has about 90% of the same classes as the other engineering majors except for the higher level courses, which are substituted with business and entrepreneurship classes that will help me when I step out into my career path.
We go through classes like Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Product Development, Business Management, Finance, and other things of that nature. These classes help us learn to balance both the creative and management side of engineering. My final project is for the New Product Development course. In that course, there’s more of a focus on requests for proposal contracts. In the engineering field, everything will involve some sort of contract or a request for a proposal to bid to get a contract. It’s really important for engineers to have the ability to prepare, write and communicate about documents that they need to make with their company or their own businesses in order to reach the consumer,” says Dan Nachtigall of Atlantic County, NJ.
“International Studies is a major that focuses on our role in our global society. It is a combination of courses based in history, theory, and anthropology and focuses on how our international system is interconnected. Modern Languages & Linguistics is the study of languages and linguistics– taking three languages or two and a linguistics path. I take Spanish as my advanced language, French as my intermediate, and Arabic as my novice language,” says Ashley Hermansen from Mullica Hill, NJ (Gloucester County).
“Biomedical Art & Visualization: There are many different fields a trained biomedical illustrator could find themselves working in. Some illustrators work directly for hospitals creating artwork to educate patients and doctors alike. Some illustrators may work for a museum, creating informational displays to educate the patrons that walk through the door. Some illustrators may find themselves creating educational scientific video games! Any piece of art or design that requires a knowledge of science requires a trained biomedical illustrator,” says Allison Mosley from Marlton, NJ (Burlington County).
“In short words, Anthropology is the study of humankind with a huge emphasis on culture. Modern Languages & Linguistics is basically the breakdown of how we view other people’s communication with one another. I personally want to end up applying and graduating with two master’s degrees in Public Health and in Biomedical Anthropology. Then, I’d love to have the opportunity to apply for a doctorate in Forensic Science. I want to hopefully work one day as a forensic epidemiologist in either America or in Peru,” says first-generation college student Shirley Celi-Landeo from Newark, NJ (Essex County).
“I know you haven’t heard of it. I didn’t hear about bioinformatics until the fall semester of my sophomore year in college. Basically, bioinformatics is the (unholy) franken-child of a biochemistry major and a computer science major. I learn enough biology and chemistry to be able to talk with biologists and chemists and I learn enough computer science to talk with programmers. My major makes science more efficient,” says Madison Dautle, a transfer from Stockton University and from Cherry Hill, NJ (Camden County).
“Management information systems is the science that studies people, organizations, technology, and companies. We are like the bridge between technology and people. We try to take all of the data and create ways for companies to make better decisions with the implementation of technology in their companies. The best part about this major is that you can be involved in any area of the company. You can be in finance, you can be in marketing, you can be in human resources, because in the end we try to implement technology into all the functions that any company has.
“The world is changing every day, because we have technology. My major offers you the opportunity to always be in stride with technology. If you change with the technology, you will always be involved and job secure. MIS offers you those kinds of opportunities,” says Osvaldo Rosi, an international student from the Dominican Republic.
“As a social media coordinator for Major League Baseball, what we do is scour the internet and try to create graphics or videos to hype up games, and intrigue people to learn about the players more. It’s a lot of player promotion, but the core of what we do in the social editorial department is watching baseball games and posting highlights.
My first boss at my first internship was a Rowan grad. My second internship was with Rowan Athletics. My third was through Rowan because Rowan has a partnership with Delaware Bluecoats or the G-league team, the Sixers, and now my boss is a Rowan grad as well. So every step along the way, I was lucky to have Rowan,” says Coby O’Brien of Toms River, NJ (Ocean County.)
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Story by: Bianca Torres, Senior, Music Industry major
