Sep. 2, 2025
Story by Ryan Gauthier, rjgauthier@health.missouri.edu
Photos by Nicolas Andrusisian and Andy Ramirez
The Mizzou Health Sciences Camp offers high school students a weeklong opportunity to explore various career paths in health care. Participants experience everything from working directly with patients to roles in research, technology and administration.
The inaugural camp, which ran from July 21-25, 2025, featured a packed schedule of hands-on activities, interactive simulations and opportunities to meet with faculty and health care professionals.
Throughout the week, campers engaged in a wide range of activities led by experts in their fields, including medical laboratory science, public health, occupational therapy and physical therapy. The activities included tours of state-of-the-art labs, presentations on nursing and medical school and even a fun scavenger hunt around the Mizzou campus.
Meet three high school seniors who came from all over the country to participate in this year’s camp:
Ava Landwehr
Hometown: Kewanee, Illinois
Ava Landwehr had a specific career goal in mind before attending the Mizzou Health Sciences Camp: She planned to pursue diagnostic medical ultrasound. But she still found value in the program’s broader curriculum.
“I want to do ultrasound, but it was very cool seeing that there are other things I could fall back on really easily because they’re all within the same undergrad program,” Landwehr said. “So if I end up not really liking that as I go through my college career, that’s fine because I can always transition to something else.”
Lauren Harper
Hometown: Frisco, Texas
Lauren Harper appreciated the hands-on learning she was able to engage in throughout the camp. Rather than doing research online regarding different health care careers, Harper enjoyed the opportunity to learn about a wide array of options and truly get a feel for what might be the right path for her.
“There are a lot more opportunities in health care and different things that you can do in health care than I previously knew about,” she said. “My eyes were opened to a lot of other new things.”
Lydia Albano
Hometown: Livingston, New Jersey
Lydia Albano was inspired to visit the University of Missouri after a teammate mentioned it to her. Despite the distance — Livingston, New Jersey, is about 30 minutes from New York City — Albano made the most of the trip to Mizzou by stopping at other schools along the way.
Although Albano had a specific career in mind before her visit, the camp activities led her to reconsider that path: “I kept my options open, and now I’m considering being a respiratory therapist. We did some practice intubation and other activities, and I thought it was really cool dealing with not only the patient but also the machine at the same time.”