This week’s campus celebrities are the girls’ swim team’s captains: Rachel Bernhardt and Aubrey Murray! Have you ever walked on campus and kind of admired Drexel’s athletes? I certainly have! Here is your opportunity to get to know two of them!
Rachel is a junior health sciences pre-physical therapy major from Vineland, NJ. One of the reasons she chose her major is because she absolutely loves working with children and loves giving them a chance to accomplish their goals that they never thought they would reach. She wants to be the one that helps make tasks that were once hard for them easy and manageable.
Her favorite thing about Drexel is the experiences you get both in and out of the education system. You get an amazing opportunity to learn new experiences during co-op, but also experience so much by exploring throughout the city, she said.
Rachel started swimming competitively in seventh grade. She knew she wanted to start swimming because she has always loved the water since she was little and it was a big thing in her high school. In seventh grade, she quit dance and decided to try out swimming on a summer league team and fell in love. She says her favorite thing about the swim team is, “[that] Drexel swimming is all the amazing people on my team. There are a lot of different personalities, but in the end, we push through the season as a team. At meets and behind the scenes, it’s great to have a swim family like ours behind you. We share great times together, and I couldn’t ask for a better group of people.”
Other than swimming, Rachel is a part of Leadership Academy and Drexel Physical Therapy Club. After college, Rachel hopes to continue swimming. She qualified for the Olympic Trials in June of 2016 for the 100-meter breaststroke in hopes of making it to the Olympics. She also hopes to one day own a pediatric physical therapy practice.
The other captain, Aubrey, is a junior nursing major from Jenson Beach, Fla., which is about an hour and a half north of Miami, on the east coast. She chose a nursing major because it was the only thing she was interested in. When she chose the major and decided to be a nurse for a living, she barely knew what the job consisted of. But, she had a gut feeling that it was the right major for her.
She has grown to love nursing on a whole new level, and it continues to baffle her how well she fits into the major and way of life. She can’t imagine doing anything else. After college, Aubrey wants to continue her education and get her Master’s in a nursing specialty. She doesn’t know what specialty she wants yet, but that’s no big deal because in nursing you can do whatever you want, she said.
Aubrey is considering travelling for a year or two and getting a job as a registered nurse wherever she goes. She is a part of the Pre-Physical Therapy Club on campus and in the summer and spring she plays intramural volleyball. Her favorite thing about Drexel is the opportunities—as a nursing student, she gets to co-op at some of the best hospitals in the country while getting unmatched experience, she said. She also loves being in the city because there is a ton of things to do and friendly people to meet.
She started swimming at her local YMCA for the after school team when she was eight because she loved being in the pool. Aubrey’s favorite thing about Drexel swimming is the amazing people on the team. It’s still the best sport out there, she said. When asked if she will continue swimming after college she says, “I don’t plan on going higher than college swimming. I’ve had a good run in college, but I don’t want to stay competitive. I know I’ll miss being on such a great team,though, so that may push me into joining another sport later on. I won’t be a couch potato, I can tell you that much.”
Both of these ladies definitely have bright futures ahead of them! Good luck in all you do, Rachel and Aubrey!