Gabrielle Bergmann said she wants to help people face to face rather than work behind the scenes.

Bergmann, junior public health major, plans to switch her major to nursing because she said she realized she wants to work in the field rather than in an office. Her decision to switch stemmed from volunteer work and student involvement, she said.

Northern Star: Do you have an idea of what you want to do using your major?

Gabrielle Bergmann: I thought I did, but now I’m actually considering switching to nursing. I thought I wanted to be in hospital administration, but now I think I would rather work in direct care.

NS: What made you rethink your major?

GB: I worked as a nurse’s assistant in a nursing home when I was younger, and it was actually my original intended major, and then I switched to public health. Now I want to switch back because I think I would be better at it and I like to help people.

NS: What specifically led you to want to become nurse?

GB: I’ve always been interested in healthcare, and I’ve always been fascinated by anatomy and physiology and biology, and not so much chemistry. I kinda found the interest in high school after I took biology, and then I joined an organization called Health Occupations Students of America and we just did a lot of volunteering in nursing homes and hospitals and we got a lot of exposure to it. It’s just always been a fascination of mine, and opposed to health administration, which is just behind the scenes in an office. I think I would rather interact one on one with people. I feel like I could really see the difference I would be making there.

NS: You’ve mentioned having done volunteer work before. Was there a specific event that was significant to you?

GB: I volunteered at Jennings Terrace in Aurora in high school a little bit, mainly during … Christmas time. We … sang Christmas carols with them and did stuff like that. I feel like the elderly get really ignored … a lot of the time, and I’d like to try to make a difference there.

NS: Since you’ve been in both nursing homes and hospitals, who would you say you’d want to work with in terms of patients’ demographics?

GB: I’m actually interested in the elderly and also in teenagers. I’ve actually interviewed a public health nurse who goes around and helps teen mothers prepare for being mothers and helps them through their pregnancy and checks on them afterward and kind of teaches them how to take care of a baby and how to juggle going to school and having a baby, and I found that kind of interesting. So, I think maybe someday I would like to get into that.