ST. JOSEPH, Minn. - Lauren Berg likes to try a lot of different things.
 
That's how the College of Saint Benedict senior figures out what fits best for her.

 

It's an approach that's worked on the track, where the Bemidji High School graduate has earned All-MIAC distinction a total of 14 times (indoor and outdoor) over the course of her collegiate career.
 
But it's also been effective beyond athletics. The biology major on a pre-med track said she's been able to bring her future career aspirations into sharper focus by taking advantage of a trio of opportunities available on campus.
 
"I came into college thinking I'd go the PA (physician assistant) route," she said. "It was really my focus the first two years. But after getting involved in a few different programs on campus, I started feeling like a physician role might be the better fit for me. I want to practice medicine at the highest level. So I switched to the track I'm on now. That's why having opportunities to experiment and learn were so valuable."
 
Those opportunities included gaining her emergency medical technician (EMT) certification and joining the Saint John's EMT squad, where she is now in her third year.
 
"It's such a unique program on these campuses and it's been so cool to become part of that community," she said. "It's a group of people all super-interested in medicine and finding ways to help others as best we can while we're still going to school."
 
Berg is also part of the Student Health Assistants (SHA) program in which pre-professional health students at CSB and SJU take part in long-term job shadowing and perform other duties in the emergency room at St. Cloud Hospital.
 
In addition, as a narrative practice minor, she has had the chance to work with patients at the St. Cloud Hospital using words as tools to assist in their care.
 
"We have a list of patients recommended by the nursing staff to be part of the program and we're able to meet with them and check in on how they're doing," Berg said. "A lot of them are people who otherwise have no family and need people to talk to. Getting the chance to work with patients on an individual basis like that is a really valuable experience."
 
Berg has also worked in the emergency room at Sanford Bemidji Medical Center since the summer after her first year and has been part of an ambulance crew based out of nearby Blackduck.
 
"That's been an eye-opening experience," said Berg, who hopes to one day work in rural medicine. "We cover a big area – around 12,000 square miles. So we spent a lot of time driving to get to patients. It's shown me a lot about what rural medicine is like. You see such a wide variety of things."
 
Variety has also been a theme during Berg's time on the Bennie track and field team, where's she's competed in everything from sprints to hurdles to middle distance.
 
But her primary outdoor events are the 400 hurdles and the 4x400 relay. She finished second overall in the 400 hurdles at the MIAC outdoor meet last season in a school-record time of 1:02.18.
 
"It's taken some time for me to completely answer the question, but now when people ask me, I describe myself as a long hurdler and long sprinter," she said. "The long hurdles is my favorite event. I love the combination of endurance, speed and agility it takes."
 
CSB head coach Robin Balder-Lanoue said those are all qualities Berg possesses in abundance.
 
"Lauren Berg is incredible in so many ways," Balder-Lanoue said. "In high school, she competed in soccer and cross country at the same time and ended up going to state when her soccer season was finished. She went to state in gymnastics and track and field too. She's so athletically gifted. But I think her biggest gift is her ability to dig deeper than anybody else. She has so much grit. When that gun goes off, you know she's going to give it everything she has every single time."
 
Berg has family ties to CSB and SJU. Her older brother Riley was a track and field athlete for the Johnnies who graduated in 2023.
 
"I like to joke that I'm my brother's copycat," she said with a laugh. "He was a track athlete and a biology/pre-med major too. Seeing how much he loved his experience played a big role in my own decision. I was really drawn to the smaller class sizes and the community feel here."
 
But Berg has now carved out her own identity and hopes to continue making a big impact as she enters the outdoor portion of her final collegiate season.
 
"My goal is to continue building on the momentum I established during the indoor season and to keep dropping time," she said. "I don't want to think too much about the fact that this is my last season and my last semester on campus. I just want to make sure I'm soaking everything in and savoring each moment I have left."