I’ve come a long way,” says senior Simi Junior. “That’s the good thing about being stubborn!” Junior’s tenacity has certainly served her well. After obtaining an MFA in drama from Yale and working as an actress for several years, she switched gears and is now pursuing another career: medicine. The road there may not have been the obvious one, but the journey has definitely been interesting.
Junior was born in San Francisco, but she grew up in Montreal (her mom’s Canadian) after her family spent a year in North and West Africa. After attending junior college outside of Montreal, she was accepted into Yale’s drama program. “Performing and acting came very easily to me, and I started very young,” says Junior, who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She met her husband, an opera singer, at Yale, and they moved to New York after graduation.
After deciding to go back to school, she was accepted at Baruch and tentatively chose economics as a major, but was soon drawn to the natural sciences: “All my life I was very interested in health, diet, and disease, but it never occurred to me to go into medicine. I didn’t even feel qualified to try.” That changed when she was misdiagnosed with an incurable condition, which prompted her to learn as much as possible about the body and illness. Talking with Baruch biology professor Emil Gernert helped her decide on her course of study. At first she found it tough going. “I’d never taken any science courses before; I knew how to study a play or script but I didn’t know how to study physics or chemistry.” She credits her professors for her eventual success. “I was always in their offices asking them things; they never made me feel like I shouldn’t be there . . . I just stuck to it and now I’m really thriving.” In addition to her schoolwork, Junior still acts in commercials and does voice-overs.
She’s currently involved in honors research in microbiology with Professor Mary Jean Holland and has just been accepted into the 2002 American Society for Microbiology Minority Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, under which she’ll work at Albert Einstein Medical College this summer. She has also volunteered with an acupuncturist, with doctors of osteopathy at St. Barnabas Hospital, and in the burn care unit of New York Hospital—all excellent experiences for a med school candidate. She plans to study osteopathic medicine but is especially interested in public health and obtaining an MD/PhD.
Junior believes that her experience at Baruch has been crucial to her progress, adding, “I just wish more people knew that Baruch has a biology department!” With graduates like Junior, it won’t stay a secret for long.

—MZ