Pre-med student follows in sibling’s footsteps for college

by Caitlyn Starkey

Junior pre-med student Kyle Darbonne juggles class, work, being a student visit assistant in the Admissions Office and being vice president of the Pre-Med and Science Club.

Caitlyn Starkey: How did you decide to come to Whitworth?

Kyle Darbonne: My brother and sister actually both attended Whitworth. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the whole smaller private school thing or if I wanted to stay in Colorado, because I love Colorado, and do the state school thing. After I came up and visited my brother, I got to stay here at Whitworth for four days I just fell in love with the campus, and the classes and the whole community.

CS: What would you ideally like to do in your free time?

KD: I’d be camping or fishing as much as I possibly could. But its hard to get away on weekends to go camping for a night or to when you and all your friend have so much going on. That or I am on a frisbee team, I go to as many games as possible, which hasn’t be a lot this semester. It’s still a lot of fun.

CS: What do you plan to do after graduation?

KD: Well, I came in thinking I wanted to do med school, and it’s still a possibility that I’ll go the whole med school route. But lately I have been thinking about the two front runners, teaching high school science, biology, because that was a big part of why I wanted to go the science route was because of my high school science teachers, one guy science teacher that I had in particular. Also physical therapy, which I haven’t looked into much. From what I have heard about it, it would be an awesome field to go into.

CS: How did you get involved with working for the Admissions Office?

KD: Freshman year my roommate was a host [admissions overnight host], so I was a host’s roommate which made me a host. Especially when they would be gone and you would have to take care of the kid for a while. I was like, “This is kind of fun getting to meet a bunch of new people for a night,” and then they would leave. Then sophomore year, I was actually a host as well as tour guide. I really love that aspect of admissions. So this year, I applied to be one of the student visit assistants, which has been awesome getting to work in the admissions office with all the people. They are all happy and love meeting people, so it’s a great work environment. I am actually signed on for the summer as well which will be a blast, as well as next year. I think I will have a little bit more responsibility than I do this year just because I will have been there for so long. Some visit assistants were kind of above me this year, so I will be stepping in to and teaching the newer visit assistants for next year. It will be fun but a lot more responsibility, which I am looking forward to.

Contact Caitlyn Starkey at cstarkey14@my.whitworth.edu.