Youıre likely to have seen her hurrying between classes and speed-walking out of the library, dangerously near closing time.

A girl who loves the outdoors, Katja Gamm keeps her bright smile even when cooped up studying during most of the year in a sustained effort to complete her curious choice of a pre-med/French major. "I have always wanted to be a doctor in some African country. So, I figured Iıd combine the French with the pre-med. Weıll see if it works out for me."

Born in Japan, her parents moved back to the U.S. when she was three, only to live in a teepee in northeastern Vermont while her dad built their first house. "We drew water from the river . . . maybe that explains why Iım one of those people who enjoys roughing it."

Now in her fourth year at St. Olaf, she still hasnıt grown to like running cross-country on the "wickedly flat" terrain. She misses the mountains of Vermont and loves both the downhill and cross-country skiing that she gets to do back home.

Much of Katjaıs time, however, has already been spent outside of Vermont: in Belize with an environmental group, in Luxembourg as an aupair, and lots of time in Canada, since she lives only an hour and a half from Montreal. "Montreal is a great city. It's like a mini-Europe." The summer before her junior year, she worked with a team of nurses in a medical clinic in Kpando, Ghana, to address public health issues such as immunization, AIDS, birth control, and nutrition.

While there, she contracted malaria, an experience which she claims helped her put life into perspective and served as valuable training. "If I want to work with sick people, itıs so important to know how to treat them when they are sick. I was in an American hospital for five days and sometimes I think I would have gotten better attention in Africa."

Her very first day at the clinic in Ghana, she was thrown into surgery, assisting "a crazed Cuban doctor who couldnıt speak any English and just assumed that I was qualified to help. It was a goiter removal, and let me tell you, I managed to stand up the entire time in a ninety degree room, with blood squirting everywhere and the pleasant smell of iodine from my face mask. He had me doing stiches at the end, after his assistant left. I kept shaking my head no; he kept nodding yes."

Katja has successfully combined her linguistic and medical interests even in Northfield, participating in the "Adopt-A-Grandparent" program at the nursing home in town, where she was paired with a French-speaking Belgian. "You should have seen how the womanıs face lit up when I started speaking French with her. The first thing she told me was that all of the nurses were dumb. We laughed together, because there was a nurse standing right there, and she had no clue what we were talking about (at least I hope)."

Her other extracurricular activities at St. Olaf have included Habitat for Humanity, in whose trips she participated both her freshman and sophomore years. "Building houses is fun, and it was especially fulfilling to build them with the families who would be living in it. I couldn't help but wonder though, while we were putting the framing up on one of the houses, how one of those houses would stand up in a Minnesota blizzard."

She is a fan of the "Minnesota nice" and says that the people she has met here at St. Olaf are what she will remember the most about the school. Last year, she was a JC on 4 North in her beloved freshman dorm of Ellingson‹a choice which she cites as one of her best at St. Olaf. "I learned so much from my girls and met a lot of wonderful people who still remain a big part of my life."

This year, Katja is making up for her shared freshman room of last year by living in St. Olafıs lovely French house‹complete with her own room, a private bathroom, a front porch, a fireplace, and a bunch of girls she loves.

While enjoying a break from her usual science labs, she has discovered a love for writing through her creative non-fiction course. "So there could be a triple mix with a career here‹medicine, writing, French... I like to keep the doors open. It's important to have a lot of ideas on the burner, because you never know where you'll end up in life."

She is currently auditing Spanish and training with a family friend who works as a doctor at the clinic in town, all in preparation for yet another trip abroad‹this time to Nicaragua over interim, where she will work in a hospital with a team of doctors.

Although interested in becoming a family doctor, or possibly a physicianıs assistant, Katja wants to take some time off to travel before continuing on to medical school. "I'm taking the year off without a doubt. Either living in Montreal, going back to Africa, or going back to Nicaragua. It's too early to tell. We'll see how I feel in a few months." For now, her only definite plan is to spend next summer living in Montreal and working in a hospital there.

Katja leaves the following bit of advice: "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it."