Whenever I tell people that my major is Athletic Training I always get a strange look. "What do you even do?" "You pass out water bottles right?" "What are you even going to do with that?" And I’m not going to lie, it is kind of disappointing that so many people don’t know what an Athletic Trainer actually is.
As an athletic trainer, yes, we do pass out water bottles and make ice bags, but if an athlete gets hurt during a game or practice we are also immediately there and decide if they need to go to the hospital or go see a doctor. We have to learn and memorize special tests to check for a large variety of injuries an athlete might have. If an athlete has to go through rehabilitation for an injury or after a surgery we also plan the entire rehab process and carry it out with the athlete and get them back in the game as soon as possible. Athletic trainers also have clinic hours where they allow athletes to come in and get an injury tested along with carrying out rehabs for athletes. And after clinic hours are over the athletic trainers also have make sure the teams practicing have water and then after practice they have to clean everything and get the athletes ice along with looking at any injuries that might have occurred during practice. And that is not even mentioning the fact that Athletic Trainers also have to sit through practices and be on site at every home game and they also travel to away games.
When it comes to what you can do with an undergraduate degree in Athletic Training, the answer is a lot! Athletic Training is a great undergraduate degree if you plan on becoming a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, or a physician’s assistant. You could also go to Med school! There are so many different opportunities!
And for those of you who say that Athletic Training is a major for dumb jocks (and yes someone has actually told me this) you are wrong. Athletic Training is a very time consuming major because even as students we are assigned to a sport and we go to their practices and games. That can sometimes mean spending hours on a bus watching basketball games with the men’s basketball team (sounds more fun than it is). And at the same time, we are also trying to do all of our homework, practice the special tests, and a lot of us have jobs that we also go to.
On my campus we are known as one of the hardest and most time-consuming majors, along with the music majors, because we spend so much time in the Athletic Training Room and at practices. It’s honestly a little disheartening when you have people telling you that your major is a joke when. In all actuality, they just don’t know what all goes into being an Athletic Trainer. So the next time someone tells you that their major is Athletic Training or that they are an Athletic Trainer have a little bit more respect and maybe even ask them what the coolest injury they have seen is because honestly, we love talking about injuries!
