On one of her 10 trips to the Amazon rainforest, where she volunteered to deliver humanitarian assistance, Kaitlyn Osborne worked with a child without hands or feet. Despite this disability, she recalls, “he was incredibly creative in how he participated in sports”—stuffing newspaper in his shoes so he could play soccer and taping frisbees to his arms to play American football.

“I wondered how I could help people like him with the right training,” Kaitlyn says. That volunteer experience inspired her to become an occupational therapist and work with pediatric patients for nearly a decade.

“I loved my time as a clinician,” says the Dallas native. “However, I didn’t see myself in a patient-facing role for the next 30 years. I wanted to find something where I would be challenged and could grow.”

Vanderbilt stood out to her as “a world-class institution that attracts world-class professors.” But what especially impressed her was the Owen network. “When I was making my decision,” she says, “I reached out to a number of alumni on LinkedIn and asked for a coffee chat. I heard back from almost every person I reached out to.”

Kaitlyn credits the Vanderbilt alumni network with helping her get her foot in the door at Medtronic, where she completed a summer internship before earning a full-time position after graduation.

One other dimension of the diverse community made an enormous difference for Kaitlyn, who entered the program as the mother of a two year old. “There were a handful of parents in my class, some of whom became my closest friends in the program,” she says. “I think finding people who are in a similar life stage, while also trying to further your career, creates a unique bond and had a significantly positive impact on my experience.”