Helping students explore college, health professions careers through camp
As a Club MEDIC camper watches, a Ball State nursing student demonstrates how to listen for abdominal sounds on a simulation manikin.
Imagine being a high school student who wants to begin a fulfilling career after college but feels that dream may be out of reach. Maybe it’s because of your family’s low-income level. Or, perhaps no one in your immediate family graduated from college or even considered attending, leaving you uncertain about how to take that first step.
Ball State University engages many Indiana high school students facing similar challenges by offering in-depth learning opportunities and in-person college-life experiences through the Indiana Youth Programs on Campus (IYPC) grant. One of those programs is Club MEDIC, which focuses on health professions pathways available through Ball State’s College of Health and the Department of Biology within the College of Sciences and Humanities.
Held each June at Ball State, Club MEDIC is a free, week-long Summer camp that includes opportunities for high school students to interact with health professionals—including Ball State faculty and students—and experience the University’s health professions learning spaces, such as the simulation labs. Camp offerings also include college preparatory sessions and a campus tour.
“An important aspect is for the students to have these valuable interactions and then build their science or healthcare worker identities, see themselves in a college setting, and envision themselves becoming professionals in healthcare or healthcare-adjacent fields,” said Jacob Werst, MA ’21, assistant director of outreach and secondary education of East Central Indiana Area Health Education Center (ECI-AHEC). ECI-AHEC, which organizes and oversees Club MEDIC, is a Ball State center housed in the College of Health.
Club MEDIC also provides high school students a glimpse of campus life beyond academics. The students stay in on-campus housing, have meals at designated campus dining halls, and participate in leisure activities such as visits to Ball State’s Charles W. Brown Planetarium and the Minnetrista Museum & Gardens in Muncie.
Sponsored by Ball State’s Indiana Youth Programs on Campus (IYPC) grant through Lilly Endowment Inc., Club MEDIC was developed through ECI-AHEC’s existing outreach and health career exploration activities at high schools in 10 East Central Indiana counties: Adams, Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Huntington, Jay, Madison, Randolph, Wabash, and Wells.
To learn more about Club MEDIC and other IYPC programs, contact Jacob Werst at jwwerst@bsu.edu.
By the numbers
Here’s a snapshot of Ball State’s 2024 Club MEDIC Summer Camp:
days of immersive learning experiences
Campers represented six Indiana counties
of attendees were first-generation* students
Housing and meals provided to campers free of charge
of attendees are 21st Century Scholars** eligible
*Ball State defines first-generation students as those who are the first in their families to attend college or whose parents or guardians did not complete a college degree.
** Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars program is a nationally recognized, early college promise program that offers income-eligible Hoosiers up to four years of paid tuition at a participating Indiana college or university after graduating high school.
