Friday | February 10, 2012
Beautiful Scholar
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By
Daniel Jimenez
31 May 2005
You’ve got much to learn about beauty pageants if your idea of a typical contestant comes from watching Sandra Bullock in “Miss Congeniality.” Today’s pageant participants tend to be collegiate academic standouts that have also devoted countless hours to community service and other charitable causes.
For an example, you need look no further than reigning Miss America Deidre Downs. Downs, 24, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor of arts in history from Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. She was also a Rhodes Scholar finalist and an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia.
An aspiring pediatrician, she has been spending this year working toward increasing awareness and community action for her Miss America platform, curing childhood cancer. Downs’ schedule tends to be hectic as she travels coast-to-coast, approximately 20,000 miles each month to speak to school groups and attend promotional activities and charity fundraisers.
With the title, Downs won a $50,000 scholarship from The Miss America Organization (missamerica.org) to pay for her medical studies at the University of Alabama. She was also honored with the organization’s 2004 Quality of Life Award and a $6,000 scholarship for her work creating Alabama’s Making Miracles Program, designed to raise awareness and funds in the fight against childhood cancer.
YOUNG MONEY TALKS TO MISS AMERICA
During an exclusive interview with YOUNG MONEY, Deidre Downs shared her most memorable college experiences, life as a celebrity and her advice for today’s young adults.
WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON YOU LEARNED IN COLLEGE?
DOWNS: I actually initially went to school on a volleyball scholarship to the University of Virginia. I thought that I wanted to do that for four years but at the end of the first year I decided that it wasn’t something that I wanted to continue doing. I think that first year I really learned not only the importance of prioritizing time wise but also of prioritizing for the long term. [I focused on] having a long term vision of what I wanted to accomplish and deciding what was important to me and what wasn’t. I decided that [sports] wasn’t really important to me anymore. I wanted to go to medical school and have a real college experience outside of sports.
STUDENTS ARE FACED WITH MANY TOUGH FINANCIAL DECISIONS WHEN THEY GET TO COLLEGE. WERE YOU ALREADY FINANCIALLY SAVVY BY THE TIME YOU ARRIVED ON CAMPUS?
DOWNS: I wasn’t particularly financially savvy when I went to college. My story is that I was on a full athletic scholarship so everything was paid for. When I decided that I didn’t want to do that anymore then I needed a way to pay for school. That’s when I started competing in the Miss Alabama pageant. I actually was able to pay for my entire undergraduate education and I got about $75,000 to pay for medical school all earned through Miss Alabama and Miss America.
But as far as being able to budget, it was something I didn’t learn until my junior and senior years. I paid for all my school expenses with my pageant money, but any kind of spending money and the car I bought I paid for myself. I got a job to pay for that.
THINKING BACK ON YOUR COLLEGIATE EXPERIENCE, IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND DO ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
DOWNS: I was happy with how things happened at school. If I could change anything, then maybe I could have enjoyed the experience more while I had it. I’ll have a few months off next year after giving up my Miss America crown and starting medical school, but then it’s pretty much the real world after that. I really enjoyed school and being able to take whatever classes I wanted. I was actually a history major but I double minored in biology and chemistry. I hope people are able to have a vision for what they want to do after college but are still taking advantage of the learning experience in whatever way that may be, whether that is academically or extracurricularly. Don’t be afraid to try new things in terms of activities like volunteer work or maybe taking up something you’ve never done before that could turn out to be something you really enjoy.
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU? WHAT DRIVES YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL?
DOWNS: From a very young age my mom taught us that the most important thing you could do, regardless of whether it’s in sports or academics, is if you’re going to do something, then don’t do it halfway. Give a 110% effort. That’s just something that’s engrained in me. When I do something I want to give it my best. I don’t necessarily have to be the best at that particular endeavor but I have to give it my best effort. So that motivates me- that innate sense that you should work as hard as you can at whatever you try. But also for me now I’m motivated with [pursuing] medicine, which has been a goal since high school. I was motivated to go into medicine because — it sounds cliché — I really want to make a difference.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING YOUNG ADULTS TODAY?
DOWNS: Often, I think, it’s deciding what to do with your life. You major in something and maybe you’re interested in that field but then you graduate, get a job and you’re not necessarily so keen on the idea of doing that for the rest of your life. I think our generation is different from our parents’ generation when it seemed like people graduated college, got married, started a career and that was the end of it. Now it seems like jobs are a little more transitory. You do a job for a couple of years and then change your mind, maybe decide to go to graduate school, and you don’t get married until you’re 30. People struggle with deciding what they want to do- what interests them personally.
DO YOU HAVE ANY FINANCIAL WORDS OF ADVICE FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS ABOUT TO START THEIR CAREERS?
DOWNS: Don’t be afraid, even though maybe you’re a senior and you’ve been on this path going toward a particular field, if another opportunity arises, to try something else. Even if you have to rule it out as a possibility once you do it. [Don't pass up] the opportunity to experience different fields to make sure that’s something you don’t want to do. Just to know that what you’re choosing is something you’ve chosen because you’ve done a lot of research and seen everything else and ruled it out. [It's important to] really keep your options open.
© 2008, Young Money Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
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