Kristin Ferreras Lora, @UmichSPH Class of 2026

“I’d rather make my family mad at me for a year instead of being miserable for the rest of my life. That, to me, is my resistance.

When I got accepted to U of M, that was my first in-your-face moment. I came in as pre-med and wanted to major in biology. By my first day of classes, I knew it wasn’t right for me.

When I told my family I didn’t want to do medicine, they were like, ‘Why? What are you going to do?’ They didn’t see me being successful if I wasn’t in medicine.

I discovered that I care more about how we can prevent things from happening, which is why I’m in public health now. I’m curious about people’s health behaviors and how it affects their daily lives.

Getting closer to my identity at Michigan and having a community to talk about things like racism has really inspired me. I’m interested in the historical side of public health; especially our failure when it comes to people of different backgrounds. For example, Black people in America were experimented on to see how their body reacts to medicine. I want to bring awareness to these historical injustices and figure out how someone’s identity interacts with the way they view public health.

When it comes to immigrant families, a lot of them put pressure on their children to do things they don’t really want to do. I’ve seen many of my peers face that pressure and end up unhappy. I’d rather be in public health happier than in medicine. That, to me, is my resistance.

I know what I like, I know what I want to do, and it might not be what others want for me, but I have a lot of faith in myself and what I can accomplish.”