In His Own Words: Caleb Atogho

Sophomore defensive back Caleb Atogho is an Innovation & Entrepreneurship/Public Health Science major that is interested in working in the medical field. Caleb, an active member of the Pre Health Terps group, shares why he wants to work in such a critical area.

Growing up I always had a passion for helping people and I knew that one day I want to position myself to help a significant amount of people. From this, I knew that I wanted to work in healthcare, but for me to achieve my ultimate goal of helping a lot of people, I knew that I needed to think outside the box.

Being a Cameroonian American is my most unique quality because of my culture and what it has taught me. Growing up in a Western African home, my parents always stressed the importance of academic excellence and positioning myself to be successful in the future to take care of myself and my family. On my mother’s side, I am the oldest of 20 grandchildren, so my aunts and uncles never fail to remind me the importance of me being successful because I’m setting an example for my younger cousins and siblings. In African culture being the first born is a big responsibility and you're expected to position yourself for success so that those younger than you can follow.

My love for sports growing up has played a large role in who I am today and what I see myself doing in the future. I lived in Cameroon when I was younger for about two years. When I came back to the U.S., I started watching a sport called football and I fell in love with it. To my family members when they hear football, they think soccer because that is what it is referred to in most countries outside the U.S., especially amongst western African countries, so I had to tell my family members that I was playing American football, not soccer. I started playing football when I was in high school and at first, I struggled a lot trying to learn and understand the game. I got better each year I was in high school and by my senior year of high school, I finally started getting more meaningful playing time and started making more of an impact on the field.

When my high school career came to an end, I knew that I did not work as hard to be the best player I could possibly be. After applying and getting into UMD, I enrolled as soon as I got my acceptance letter since it was my top choice out of all the schools I applied to. My focus after getting into UMD was my academics and figuring out what specifically I wanted to do with my future, but in the back of my head I told myself I was going to try and play football at UMD considering I grew up a Maryland fan.

My first two years here at UMD I was taking pre-health courses and I even ended up applying to the business school because I knew I wanted to own my own business when I got older, so I thought why not try minoring in business. By my sophomore year I ended up majoring in Public Health Science and minoring in Business. By this time, I thought that I wanted to work with athletes but still keeping my options open. 

By my junior year I started getting involved with student organizations as I joined our African Student Associations Executive Board here at UMD so that I could be more involved not only with the African community here at UMD but at other universities in Maryland as well and build my network. During the first week of school junior year, I ended up trying out for the football team here for the third and last time and I was blessed with the opportunity to play for my home state and at the school I grew up rooting for at a power five, Big Ten school. Although I have dealt with some adversity while playing here due to some injuries, I am forever grateful for the opportunity I was given to play for UMD.

As said earlier, growing up I always had a lot of love for sports and especially football. Football, unlike any other sport I played, taught me the importance of teamwork and perseverance along with handling adversity. Playing football here at UMD made me improve my physical and mental toughness whether it was through tough workouts or practices and even just the time commitment along with balancing all of it with my academic workload and extracurricular activities. Although this will be my last year playing football, I am thankful for the opportunity and the lessons playing here at UMD has taught me I will use in my career and the rest of my life.

From being a student-athlete, I was given the opportunity to intern at an orthopedic/sports medicine clinic where I shadowed orthopedic doctors and watched them use a more natural approach to healing patients with injuries rather than sending them straight into surgery. Then after they helped these patients, they sent them to a Physical Therapist to help them make a full recovery. From this experience I figured out that I would like to be a Doctor of PT while pursuing my MBA so that I can open my own PT practice in the future. Most patients had injuries that were preventable if they understood the importance of physical exercise and did basic workouts to strengthen various muscles around their bodies.

Amongst us western Africans, many do not understand or prioritize their physical health in which as a result many western Africans do not have the healthiest lifestyles and I want to change that. My maternal grandparents passed away when I was a freshman in high school which was very tough on myself considering how close I was with my grandmother and how she was only 66 when she passed away. When I lived in Cameroon I lived with my grandparents where they had their own school that me and my younger sister attended. 

To honor my grandparents, I eventually want to open a physical therapy/athletic training clinic near where my grandparents had their school to help youths engage in physical activity at a young age and carry what they learn with them as they get older and continue to pass it down. This is the ultimate impact I want to make in which I want to help many western Africans be more physically active and prioritize their physical health.