May 9, 2018
By Zac Ellis
VUCommodores.com
NASHVILLE – The cast of characters in Megan Huebner‘s childhood reads like the guest list on Noah’s Ark.
“Dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, hermit crabs, hamsters – we always had a ton of pets,” Huebner said. “We lived in the suburbs, or else we would’ve had a small farm. We had as much of a zoo as we could.”
A love of animals is why Huebner, a graduating senior distance runner for the Vanderbilt track & field program, grew up wanting to be a veterinarian. On Friday, she will graduate from Vanderbilt with a degree in Bachelor of Arts in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Huebner will begin veterinary school at North Carolina State University in the fall.
Graduation at Vanderbilt represents the next step towards Huebner’s long-held dream.
“I’ve been saying I want to be a vet since I was in kindergarten,” Heubner said. “But as I got older, I also realized I like science and medicine and biology. I realized I liked the aspect of helping people through their animals.”
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Huebner arrived at Vanderbilt as a distance runner from La Quinta, Calif. and quickly became an impactful piece to the Commodores’ roster. As a freshman in 2015, she ran on Vanderbilt’s 4×800 relay team that set a new indoor school record with a time of 9:04.70 at the Commodore Invitational. This past February, Huebner finished seventh in the 3000-meter run with a collegiate-best 9:38.27 at SEC Indoor Championships.
Alongside her Commodore career, Huebner found time to cultivate her veterinary dreams. She spent summers shadowing vets in several states, including at an animal sanctuary in Texas and a mixed practice vet in Kansas. Those experiences allowed Huebner to soak in the more serious side of veterinary medicine.
“It’s not always fun; you help people through hard decisions,” Huebner said. “Seeing animals in pain is not always easy, but it’s something I want to help with. I like the aspect of helping people through a rough time with their animals.”
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Huebner has yet to narrow down a veterinary specialty. But the former horseback rider absorbed plenty of experience with equine medicine during her internships. Huebner is now thankful her stint as a Vanderbilt student-athlete allowed for extracurricular exposure, which helped fuel her veterinary dreams.
But Huebner’s memories as a Commodore student-athlete won’t soon be forgotten, either.
“The combination of academics and athletics at Vanderbilt has been great,” Huebner said. “I visited here as a recruit and loved the team, and I could just tell it was a tight-knit group. I will miss the friendships and my teammates. The experience of being on a team is bonding. You share a lot of time, memories. I will look back fondly on this.”
Zac Ellis is the Writer and Digital Media Editor for Vanderbilt Athletics.
