"An alumni mentor: Mary Scott (BA Anthropology, 2018) is a Research Coordinator at the Bruyere Research Institute and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute primarily investigating the healthcare for older adults and those at the end of life.
I was interested in medical anthropology throughout my undergraduate. I enjoyed that many professors were flexible, including letting students choose their own topics for essays, which allowed me to research this topic and write about the intersection of culture and science. I reached out to a few organizations at the beginning of my final year, asking for a volunteer position and was able to find a match that also qualified for a field-work course credit in anthropology. This student position with a medical research team evidently launched my career in epidemiology.
Anthropology is a broad framework that can be applied to so many fields. It grounded me in important concepts such as c ultural relativism, which reminded me to reflect on my own biases when I explore what people do and why they do it. I t taught me to be an active participant in my observations and to consider that others experiences and interpretations may be quite different from my own. I am very grateful for my anthropology degree and the faculty, staff, and students who taught me invaluable life lessons."
