Alyssa Warburton ‘18 always knew she wanted to be a doctor, and her Kettering University experience set her up for success and helped her get accepted into her top choice for medical school.

Through the pre-med program at Kettering, her co-op experience at Hurley Medical Center in Flint and many leadership opportunities, Warburton was accepted into three medical schools, including her top choice at the University of Michigan.

“The co-op program brought me to Kettering. To get into medical school you have to have patient contact hours, at least a couple of hundred. At Kettering it was built in and it was this next level experience where I was working with doctors. At Hurley during my co-op they treated me like a mini medical student. They wanted me to ask questions. They wanted me to learn,” Warburton said.

She plans to specialize in pediatrics and hopes to work at Hurley Medical Center. By working with kids, Warburton feels she can make a significant difference.

“I really love working with kids. The effect you can have in pediatrics is so profound. You don’t know what the kids are going to do the rest of their lives. They could grow up to be anything. You just allowed them to live the rest of their lives,” Warburton said.

Warburton’s time at Kettering University set her up for success, she said. The small class sizes, mentors, supportive professors, opportunities to get involved on campus and connections formed with physicians at Hurley all set her on the right path. She majored in Biochemistry with a Biology minor and a pre-med course of study. 

She was involved in several organizations on campus and served on leadership boards for many of them. Warburton was president of her sorority, Alpha Phi, and involved in clubs like Pre-Med Club and Green Engineering Organization (GEO).

“Kettering gives you all the opportunity you need to get into medical school. Medical schools want to see that you are a leader. There are so many cool things happening at Kettering that you don’t have an excuse to not get involved,” Warburton said. “The small class sizes were huge for me. A big part of medical school is you have to have the grades. My professors were very helpful to make sure I understood the material. They want you to come to office hours. They want to help you.”

Participating in lab research with professors and clinical research with doctors, along with many hours of patient contact, gave Warburton the experience she needed.

With her experience at Hurley, she presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ national meeting on a research project through her co-op as a sophomore at Kettering. She was there with only one other undergraduate student.

“By the time I start medical school I will have presented at two national pediatric conferences. I have been able to do a lot of medical student level research projects with Hurley physicians,” Warburton said. “The connections that I have made with the physicians I work with is just incredible. The physicians like having us there, they like teaching us. In my experience the doctors want me to learn. They will have me come to surgeries even if I’m just in the corner watching. They want us to ask questions.”

The fast pace of Kettering will help her to easily transition into the fast pace of medical school, Warburton said. She’s ready to get started to move closer to her dream job.

“Living in Flint you get so many community service opportunities. That’s another aspect. Kettering provides everything you need to have a strong medical school application and to have a strong foundation for medical school,” Warburton said. “It’s so exciting to know where I’m going to medical school. For me the way that Kettering just made sense for pre-med is the same way University of Michigan just made sense for medical school. It will set me up for the career I really want. I really want to come back and work with the Flint community when I get older.”