Curb Spotlight: Berkeley Kendrick
Curb Scholar, Berkley Kendrick, has a passion for human health is an extension of her love of athletics and human capability. Joshua Moore, sat down with Berkeley to learn more about what led her to pursue a career in medicine, health and society and how being a Curb Scholar at Vanderbilt has given her a great community and has open doors for her in her desired field.
J: What are some of the interest or involvements you had in high school that have carried over to your life at Vanderbilt?
B: I’ve always been really passionate about sports and health. I’m finishing my medicine, health and society major, this semester and I’m super excited about that. I’m taking all MHS classes this semester. I’m so happy with my schedule. It’s beautiful. It’s like Global Health Principles and Practices and like Autism in Context, which is something I’m really passionate about. I teach tennis to autistic kids because one of my best friends in high school, his younger brother was diagnosed and he was like a little brother to me. So, I’ve always been really passionate about that. I’m really into sports. I’m a huge competitive tennis player. I’ve started running because my friend is making me run a half marathon with her this semester. So, we’ll see how that goes.
I love to volunteer on the sidelines now. I’m in Vanderbilt Emergency Medical Society, VEM’s for short, and I’m EMR certified so when guys go down, I can help. I was the student athletic trainer in high school so, I’m aware of the protocol for spinal cord injuries and how to address that or broken limbs. So yeah, that’s like what I’m really passionate about.
J: How did you decide on medicine as a career path?
B: I’ve known I wanted to be a doctor since I was 5 years old. My grandfather was a radiologist, so I kind of take after him. I remember my cousin Robby. I was like twelve years old, and he was maybe 16. He was a swimmer, and he dove into the pool and cracked his head open on the bottom. And I remember calling 911, seeing it all the blood and not being freaked out. Everyone else was freaking out. Although it was obviously bad for him, it was eye opening to me.
J: I know you used to be a pretty competitive athlete in high school, how did you make the decision to step away from that?
B: Yea, I’ve been playing tennis since I was five. I played all throughout high school and traveled competitively pretty much every weekend. That was kind of my life. I’d go to school and then I’d go tennis for four hours and then I’d go to model U.N. and then I’d go home and repeat. I never thought I would play professionally because I wasn’t being homeschooled since the time I was five, which is kind of what you have to do if you’re going to go that route. There’s a lot of risk of injury and a huge time commitment. I’m still a sports fanatic. And tennis will always be my sport, but I wanted to focus on other things.
J: Can you talk a little more about your major, how you decided on it, some of the work you’ve been doing there?
B: I am a medicine, health and society major with a concentration in global health.
I’m doing a May-mester this summer where I get to go to France and Italy, according to a CDC study, they have some of the best health care systems in the world. So, I’ll be doing a comparison between those and the US.
I would say what got me into it was volunteering. My mom is the executive director of the Food Bank of Monterrey County. And I used to volunteer a lot of hours there. And seeing that over 50 percent of hospitalizations are due to type 2 diabetes. And in kids under the age of five in our county, it really was disheartening to me because not everyone has access to healthy and nutritious food.
Two other things that got me into the major and why I chose Vandy were the classes I got to take my freshman year and the connection to hospitals on campus. I took my first MHS classes my second semester of freshman year. I got into social dimensions of health and illness, which is an introductory class. I took medicine, law and society, which kind of got me thinking about medicine from a law perspective. And then I took death in the body, which is an anthropological class. I chose Vandy because it’s one of the few schools where there’s four hospitals on campus. I really want to volunteer at the children’s hospital because I love kids. But that was one of the main reasons I chose it.
J: What other projects are you working on?
B: I was selected as a team member in the Stanford d.school’s University Innovation Fellow program last spring. Since then, I have leveraged the experiences I have learned about design thinking and innovation– as well as the lessons learned through the Curb Scholars program to address complex problem with innovative solutions facing the nation as well as the Nashville community. I perceive the opportunity to learn and apply the processes from the Design Institute as an effective toolkit and philosophy for contending with many public policy challenges prevalent on Vanderbilt campus.
The Curb Scholars program has fostered many friendships with students and faculty who share the same social responsibility, artistic imagination and leadership to tackle the myriad issues confronting society today. The University Innovation Fellows program has provided me an intellectual framework to build upon these relationships within the Curb program and the campus as a whole.
J: Clearly, you’re a very well-rounded individual, which makes me curious. What talent did you showcase for your Curb Scholar application?
B: I did a creative writing piece. One of the prompts was about a mini display that you would do, which I would still love to do. Mine was about a homeless person in Monterrey County. So, I’d have a miniature display case, and in it there’d be a hospital bed, symbolizing how homeless people often struggle from mental illness or suffer from ill health. There would also be an I.D. card with a license, but obviously the person wouldn’t have access to a car. And there were several other objects, like a pocketknife, pictures of memories and so on. So, my proposed Curb project was about eradicating homelessness and showing that experience from an arts perspective, trying to get people really thinking about it.
J: What would you say has been your favorite part about being a Curb Scholar?
B: Probably the community. I met Sydney Juda, probably my first day of Curb scholars, we started doing weekly lunches and she’s one of my best friends. The resources are incredible, and the community is amazing. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities and I’m very grateful because of that. I work for Professor Clayton on a global genetics project, doing data analysis, data entry and hopefully I’ll be doing some writing for him and publishing in the near future.
J: What’s a piece of advice you would give someone interested in becoming a Curb Scholar?
B: Pursue your passions, find something with creative dexterity that you are passionate about, whether it be photography, music, calligraphy. Be open minded. Put effort into your application. My advice for anyone when doing anything is you should be passionate about. If you don’t care about it, unless you don’t have a choice, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. That’s my philosophy, because whatever I do, I like to do well. So really put effort and care and time into it and make it a skill or something that you really want to do.
Berkeley Kendrick
Class of 2022
Medicine Health And Society Major
Hometown: Carmel, California