Student Profile: Discerning What Healing Work to Do

Caroline Gamard, T '22, came to a Duke Chapel service as a freshman but didn't think she would come back until she discovered a faith community through the Chapel Scholars program and also with the Duke Episcopal Center. Having begun a major in chemistry, when the pandemic hit, Gamard was left with lots of time to ponder her purpose in life. Watch her faith-and-learning profile:

"That's where the Chapel and where these faith communities really came into play," she says about conversations she had with Chapel and Episcopal Center ministers. "One of the reasons I was originally in chemistry was that I wanted to go into pharmacology and drug design because I was really drawn to this idea of healing through making better drugs, but I realized I really wanted to be part of that healing process with people one-on-one."

"All of the that helped me figure out that I really wanted to a psychologist and work in mental health care," she says. "One thing that I want to do in my work is open these spaces for people to come exactly as they are and be authentic and be validated, and I feel like I learned about those spaces by occupying them at the Episcopal Center, at the Chapel."

Now majoring in psychology, the senior from Fairhope, Alabama, says, "This was my life speaking to me; this was God telling me, 'This who I made you to be.'"