Gabe Sanborn, College of Education
Degree: Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science
Hometown: Lake Villa, Illinois

What brought you to DePaul?

I love DePaul's campus. Lincoln Park is a beautiful neighborhood, but it's not just that, Chicago is at its doorstep. Restaurants, attractions, sporting events and all kinds of things to do are close at hand. The Lincoln Park campus itself feels like a familial neighborhood. Everything's so relaxed. It’s easy to forget you're in a big city when you're over here. There are cool spots to chill out and get work done, and when it's time to have fun, the city is right there.

I also transferred from community college and all my credits transferred seamlessly to DePaul. A lot of people lose credits when they transfer, so that was huge. I was able to graduate a little bit early because of it.

How do you connect with the DePaul community outside the classroom?

Sports helped me get my foot in the door. I'm a big sports fan and love basketball, so being involved in intramural sports gave me a natural way to meet new people.

The biggest way I connected with peers was through my major. Exercise science has a lot of concentrated classes, and I met a lot of people with the same interests and mindset. It's easy to relate to people when we're all working toward the same goal at the end of the day.

Is there a professor or mentor at DePaul who has shaped how you think about your future career?

One professor who has really stood out to me is Kristen Neisler, a licensed physical therapist who teaches many of the PT-centric classes here. She has her own private clinic and is currently working toward her doctorate, continuing to learn as much as she can about the field even while she's teaching it. That commitment is inspiring. 

Her knowledge is incredible. Since PT is the field I want to go into, I get to ask her a lot of questions and compare what she says to what I see at my own PT clinic. I get to pick her brain a little bit about manual therapy, modalities, all of it. She's the most inspiring teacher I've had. 

What advice would you give incoming students?

Find balance. A lot of people say high school is a lot easier than college, but for me, they were about the same difficulty — it just takes a lot more time in college. Find a schedule that gets the work done but also leaves room for fun and being involved in the community.

The other piece of advice is to ask questions. A lot of people are scared to speak up in class or try to answer questions, even if they might be wrong. Speaking up builds rapport with your teachers. They realize you're trying and that you want to learn. Once they see that, they go out of their way to help. 

What's next for you?

I have a 400-hour exercise science pre-PT internship at a DePaul PT clinic in the fall. After that, I'll take a six-month gap before grad school. I'm planning to work full-time at a PT clinic during that gap and travel a bit. I'd love to go to Europe or somewhere outside the country.

Then it's three years of PT school. I'm still figuring out where. I'll apply to UIC and Rosalind Franklin since they're close to home, but I also want to explore out of state. I've lived in the Chicagoland area my whole life, and I think it's important to experience new perspectives, especially in PT. Every clinic and demographic is different, and I want to test how much I love the profession by seeing it in different places.