By Emily Cousins | Staff Writer

Students at Baylor often pursue two related majors to be better prepared for their intended career. Electing to be a double major is also for students with unrelated interests, which often opens multiple career options.

Spring sophomore Lauren Graves is a medical humanities major with a secondary major in cello.

“I have been playing cello since I was 10, and I didn’t want to give it up going to college,” Graves said. “I didn’t want to let it go, and I knew that if I wasn’t involved with it in school, then I probably wouldn’t keep up with it.”

After college, Graves said she wants to become a physician’s assistant and possibly go into dermatology.

“I had really bad acne growing up, and I had to go on Accutane,” Graves said. “There’s other things, like I’ve had eczema for most of my life, and my dermatologists inspired me to want to go into dermatology just because the amount of confidence I feel like I gained after my skin cleared up, and I learned how to take care of it. So I want to be able to give that same confidence to other people who struggle with skin problems.”

Even after she graduates, Graves said she still plans to incorporate the cello into her life because she enjoys playing with others and making friendships through her love of music.

“In Houston, and I think in a lot of cities, they have these orchestras made up of health professionals, which I think is really cool,” Graves said. “So I’d love to be a part of one of those in whatever city I’m in. Then, in whatever city I end up in, if they don’t have an orchestra like that, I would try and see if I can find people who are interested in starting one.”

Graves also said she has more options for jobs because of her cello major, should she decide later that she wants to go in a different direction.

“I think if I wasn’t doing the PA route, I would definitely go into music therapy because I think that’s a really awesome profession,” Graves said. “I had a hard time choosing between the two.”

Austin freshman AnnaGrace Hales is also a double major at Baylor. She is majoring in international studies and journalism.

After moving around from place to place all of her life, Hales said being able to live in cities all over the world was a great experience.

“My dad was in the military, so I’ve moved around a ton,” Hales said. “My most recent move was from Naples, Italy. It’s really cool to see the different cultures. Especially in Europe, it’s really easy to travel around to different countries … So seeing the different ways of living around the world was really interesting to me.”

Hales said she added journalism because it complemented her international studies major.

“I picked both of the majors because I feel like they’re pretty broad,” Hales said. “I have a lot of options, but I’m thinking either nonprofit or politics.”

Hales said she is leaning more towards working for or creating her own non-profit so she can help others.

“I’m super passionate about human trafficking and raising awareness,” Hales said. “I did in high school a club called Girl Up. It’s helping to educate women in third world countries. We raised money for bikes so that young girls in Africa could get access to education, like get to school. So maybe I would do something that has to do with human trafficking awareness, education for women and women empowerment.”

Hales said double majoring opens up many doors for people who aren’t quite sure where they see themselves in the future.

“I’m open to different career paths,” Hales said. “That’s kind of what I wanted because I don’t have a set thing that I want to do yet.”