Winter My Campus event highlighted Nursing, Behavioral Health, Pharmacy

Loma Linda University hosted 60 local high school students for the quarterly My Campus: Minority Youth in the Health Professions event Sunday, Feb. 28.

The high school students began at West Hall learning about the School of Nursing. Nursing student volunteers demonstrated how to establish resting heart rates, how to give injections properly--using oranges for practice--and provided a tour of the school's simulation lab.

The next stop on the high school students' journey was the School of Behavioral Health, where volunteers from the school's three departments--social work and ecology, counseling and family sciences and psychology--presented differences and similarities between the programs.

The School of Pharmacy concluded the school presentations for the visiting students in Shryock Hall. Pharmacy student volunteers taught the high school students the importance of hand-washing and helped them compound ingredients to make hand sanitizer. Third-year pharmacy student Brian Nyamwange served as the event's keynote speaker, challenging the students to turn "failures" into success.

More than 40 Loma Linda University students served as mentors during the speed-mentoring portion of event, engaging with the visiting students and providing advice about the college-going process and things they wished they had known before entering college. The program placed a strong emphasis on encouraging students to seek out mentors to help with their journeys toward their desired career paths.

Participating high school students reported enjoying the event and thanked the Loma Linda University students for mentoring them.

My Campus is a quarterly program held during the school year and is part of the high school pipeline programs coordinated by the Institute for Community Partnerships Community-Academic Partners in Service (CAPS) office.

The next event--highlighting the School of Medicine and the School of Dentistry--will take place April 17. For more information, visit caps.llu.edu/community-programs.