Three years ago, Melanie Moore decided to change her major from nursing to biological sciences with the goal of attending medical school.
With the decision, she realized she was taking on a major challenge. Just how big it would be, she had no way of knowing.
COVID-19 not only ended an internship just three weeks into the job, but forced her to take most of her classes in her crucial senior year at Mississippi State online.
“It’s definitely been a challenge,” said Moore, 21, of Caledonia. “Most of my courses are supposed to be in person, but this semester I’ll only go to classes two days a week. I learn better in person. What I’ve learned is you have to be very self-disciplined to keep up with everything.”
Originally, Moore was set to graduate last spring. Instead, she accepted an internship at Disney World that was supposed to run from March until August.
“I thought it would be a good experience for me,” Moore said. “You have to have a lot of self-discipline, and I thought it would really help teach me to be more independent.”
But just three weeks into the job, Disney World shut down because of the pandemic.
“I was really disappointed, especially since I put off graduating by a semester,” Moore said.
One thing Moore probably doesn’t have to learn is the importance of hard work. With two part-time jobs, along with her studies, she has no aversion to work.
In addition to her summer job as a lifeguard at Columbus Air Force Base, Moore has a part-time job at Bride and Groom. She has also been working at a deer processing company in Caledonia, Fork ‘N Road, during the winter break.
“I started working there in high school,” she said. “Last year, my junior year of college, I was coming home and stopped by there. I always kept in touch with them. So when I went by there, they told me they needed workers.”
From November through February, Fork ‘N Road employs a dozen or more temporary workers, most of them high school and college students home for winter break.
Nancy Larmour, who with her husband has owned and operated Fork ‘N Road for 11 years, said Moore has been a great worker.
“I call her our doctor,” Nancy Larmour said. “It’s hard work, especially with how busy we’ve been. Melanie has been great. She really knows what she’s doing and, at this point, she can do most about every job we have here. All of the kids are like that. They’ve been great.”
Moore said she likes the work, even though some of her fellow workers are a bit queasy with some aspects of the job.
“I’m the only girl that will do the skinning,” she said, laughing. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Moore will begin classes at Mississippi State on Jan. 11.
“I’ll finish in December,” she said. “I’m also studying for the NCATs (the test required for those who want to attend medical school) and start applying to medical schools in the summer.”
That will be a big step in fulfilling a dream that began, rather abstractly, in high school.
“I always wanted to work with children,” she said. “In high school, I wasn’t sure exactly what that would look like. My mom thought I should be a teacher, but by the time I graduated I thought I’d like to be a neonatal nurse.”
After her first year at East Mississippi Community College, she decided to change her major.
“I started researching everything and I realized it would take about the same amount of years to go into medical training to be a doctor,” she said, “so I decided to go for it.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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