Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/215616
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Smooth operator Senior Ariel Edwards has become a rising force for the Lady Lions | T he communications and marketing internship that Ariel Edwards landed this past summer at Mount Nittany Medical Center consisted mostly of everyday office tasks: writing patient letters, copy editing internal newsletters, proofreading documents. But one day, Edwards was invited to do something a little more exciting. "I had an opportunity to sit in on a surgery, she said. "That was pretty cool. " " The operation employed a robotic surgical system that uses four mechanical arms to help perform minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures. Edwards scrubbed up and was right there alongside the surgeons, watching intently. "It was very interesting, she said, "very inform" ative. " And very influential, too. Edwards had thought about becoming a pre-med student when she enrolled at Penn State a few years earlier but quickly decided that she was too busy with her extracurricular activities to handle such a demanding major. That made sense. Her main extracurricular activity involved playing basketball for the Lady Lions, a rather time-consuming job. So she chose to major in health policy administration instead, figuring that it would prepare her for a potential career as a hospital CEO. But she's since reconsidered that plan and wants to become a surgeon. "As I went through the courses, I kind of rerouted myself into being a doctor, she said. " "I feel like it's what I really want to do. Sometimes when you go to college, you're not really sure what you want to do. I wasn't sure. It took me a little while to figure it out. I had been thinking about it before the internship, but when I sat in on the surgery, it opened my eyes to another aspect of the health system that I wasn't familiar with. " Edwards has a long road ahead of her before she'll be wielding a scalpel. She