KATE REITER, CLASS OF 2004
Kate Reiter graduated from University High School in 2004 and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Marquette University. She is studying clinical psychology with an emphasis on neuropsychology. Below Kate answers questions about her college experience and how University prepared her for IU and beyond.
What have you been up to since leaving University?
Following UHS, I studied psychology and Spanish at Indiana University. During college, I studied in Salamanca, Spain for a semester. After college, I moved to Chicago and started working as a research assistant at Northwestern University, studying those with Alzhiemer’s Disease or Schizophrenia using structural MRI. I’m currently in my third year of graduate studies at Marquette University and am researching aging and cognition, utilizing MRI methods.
How do you feel University best prepared you for college?
I think University helped me gain the confidence to seek out further opportunities. While at University, we often worked in small groups, which helped us appreciate how our unique characteristics contributed to group dynamics both in regards to academic material and communication. I think having individuality being a general emphasis in high school was beneficial.
Do you see that the core values you learned at University still apply to your life now? How?
The core values certainly do apply to my life now. I find ‘commitment to personal responsibility’ particularly salient. Sometimes it’s easy for us to ‘get by’ without trying very hard, but keeping yourself to certain expectations allows us to achieve what we want and have good relationships with others.
What’s your best University memory?
It’s hard to choose one. I really enjoyed being with my friends and participating on the tennis team. During January Term, I was able to go to Salamanca, Spain for two weeks to live with a family. I learned a lot from this experience culturally, but it was also a nice experience to learn about living outside of my mom’s home for the first time. I loved the city so much so that I returned for five months in college.
What has been the most valuable experience you have had since leaving University?
Graduate school is a very influential experience. We play a ton of different roles on a daily basis, which teaches us so many aspects of the field. It also teaches us to be efficient, to multi-task/prioritize, and also find what is most important to us as an individual.
Check our Featured Alumni page often for profiles on University High School graduates like Kate.