Students hoping to enter a professional program at ULM got a little help with their preparations thanks to the women of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
The Theta Zeta chapter of AKA put on a professional school forum Wednesday and invited everybody on campus who were interested in joining any of the professional programs offered at ULM.
While there, members of various programs took turns presenting some of the requirements of the program and gave some insight into what potential applicants are to expect once in the program.
Preparation for the application process was the first thing mentioned during the forum, and it began with pharmacy students.
“I highly recommend that you go ahead and start now,” said Destiny Dubose, a student in pharmacy school in regards to when students should start applying for a professional program.
Prerequisites, recommended courses, GPAs and GRE scores were some of the main points hit on by each presenter in regards to their program.
One thing that stood out during the presentations was campus involvement and community service. Presenters emphasized campus involvement time and time again. They even went as far as to recommend which organizations and clubs looked best on applications for each of their programs.
Brittany Jones, a dental hygiene student, gave attendees the advice of knowing why they wanted to be in the program. According to Jones, you can’t just say you’re interested in one program, because you didn’t get accepted into another one. You had to have a legitimate and good reason for wanting to join a program. Jones drew a high applause as she concluded her presentation, affirming that hard work gets you far anywhere.
“You can pray all you want, but if you don’t put in the work, it won’t get you nowhere,” Jones said.
Colby Carey, a nursing student, talked about commitment in her presentation with the nursing program. Carey admitted that school was not easy, but if you’re fully committed and do what you love, then you can manage to get by. She also told attendees to not get discouraged if they aren’t accepted into their program of choice their first semester.
“If you aren’t admitted the first time don’t change your major immediately,” Carey said.
The event ended with a Q&A session where attendees could ask specific questions to the presenters of their choice. Michaela Bell, the president of Theta Zeta, said that she hopes events like the one put on help students in their journeys to professional school and that she and her sorority hope to put on more events like the forum.
“We think it’s a program really needed for this campus because coming in as a freshman you think you want to be a part of a major, and you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into. So, we just want to let them know what they’re getting themselves into before they apply,” Bell said.
Bell said given the turnout of Wednesday’s event her and her sorority are looking into hosting another similar event in the Spring.