What can you realistically do with a KINESIOLOGY degree??

I don't know about grads, but I've chatted with a number of kinesiology students who sold me running shoes, so I suppose that's a career option.

My hairdresser has a degree in Kinesiology.

I actually have a masters in kinesiology. I've worked more on the sports marketing and management side. I sold exercise equipment for five years after college and dealt with a lot of great people in the fitness area and made better than average money. One of my classmates now has personal training facility and another is the marketing director for a minor league baseball team. There are a lot of possibilities, especially if you want to start your own business. My best advice to you is to take some business classes along with the kinesiology classes so that you have some business background in case you want to start your own fitness related business during or after college.

NOT that there's anything wrong with that.

Hairdressers and barbers make the world go around, folks. I mean this most seriously.

Really, go get a degree in biology , biochem, or chem, then go to med school.

Pay no attention to the idiot responses. Another career is occupational therapy. This involves getting people's functional skills back in order following disease or impairment. There are lots of options in this field as well. Depending on where you are going to school, you can get involved in some of the research aspects of things as well.

As the above several comments suggest, in the US, kinesiology does not have the greatest of reputations, unfortunately. For some reason, the Canadian schools have much better kinesiology reputations, and seem to be more rigorous in the science.

The final result is that whatever you decide to do, go out and actively seek faculty who are doing research similar to your interests and see if you can work or volunteer with them for a summer or a term to get some experience. Your department should have a list of faculty with research interests. Also, don't limit yourself to just kinesiology faculty- if your program has a biomedical engineering or biomechanics department, check those faculty out as well.

Good Luck!

kines,

my running shoe salesperson comment was (mostly) tongue in cheek. I've also known a number of health club workers with kinesiology degrees. And I'm Canadian. Not sure what those jobs pay (not much I expect), but, heck, you prpbably get to work out for free.

A kinesiology degree will not gain you access to the professions of Occupational Therapy or Engineering (biomedical or other) without an additional degree in those fields.

Youngin',

Always question the sincerity of someone that begins a post with a four letter word. Also, I would caution you about the presumption that an MD = science, rather an MD = the practice of medicine and the potential to get involved or focus on scientific pursuits. To answer your question, there are positives and negatives associated with an undergrad degree in kinesiology. First the negatives: the overwhelming majority of programs/departments are centered around training people to teach physical education and/or do clinical fitness and exercise evaluation. With the exception of a few (Penn State and Ball State come to mind), these programs are woefully inadequate in preparing someone to pursue science as a career. Also, an undergrad degree in Kinesiology doesn't provide any qualifications that you couldn't otherwise get by majoring in something else and taking a few classes and doing some sort of internship. Lastly, at many institutions, kinesiology has sadly become a 2nd class degree, and incorrectly perceived by people as an easy or jock degree. The positives: kinesiology undergrad degrees are perfect if you want to pursue exercise prescription/therapy, coaching and a teaching certificate (allows you to work at the elementary or secondary school level), or work at a fitness center. Lastly, you mentioned athletic training as a potential opportunity for kinesiology grad when actually it is often either a seperate program or run by an atheltic department, and is very specialized, like physical therapy, requiring additional selection processes and work performed towards becoming certified. What aspects of science and exercise interest you? Feel free to contact me with any questions -

keith.wilkerson@uvm.edu

. I may be able to help you out more, as I've gone through kinesiology departments at the undergrad and grad level and am now work as a scientist.

You could always be a personal trainer. Even though you don't need a degree to get certified through the ACSM or NSCA a degree would definetly look nice to a potential employer. You could get certified as a Strength & Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA, which does require that you have some sort of health/fitness related degree (Kines, Ex. Phys., ect...) So far....

1. Coach

2. Gym Teacher (doesn't that require a teaching degree?)

3. Personal Trainer (PTs with degrees make more money that those w/o)

4. Strength & Conditioning Specialist (most sports teams call these guys strength and conditioning coaches).

5. Physical Therapist (Isn't this a separate degree program than kines.?)

6. Athletic Trainer

In terms of $$$$ I would list them in this order: Physical Therapist, Athletic Trainer, Strength & Conditioning Specialist, Personal Trainer, Gym Teacher, Coach. There is a very wide range in earning potential of the coach and personal trainer. I know personal trainers who charge up to $100 per hour session. In terms of job flexibility I would go with personal trainer as you can work in a club, out of your own home, on a website, ect, set your own rates if you're not at a club, ect.

Alan

Q. What do Kinesiology grads say at work every day?

A. Would you like fries with that?

My wife graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and she now makes over $40,000/year as a 3rd Grade Bi-Lingual teacher in the public school system in Texas.

A degree from any college is more for opening doors of opportunity. My degree is a Bachelor of Science in Sports Management and after coaching high school, then college, I now manage a running store. You never know where life will lead you, but if you prepare yourself educationally- by earning a college degree, you'll open those doors.

Back to my wife, she wanted to be a PE teacher, but the district was in need of Bilingual teachers and who could turn down a $3000 stipend and the opportunity to teach with full salary while getting the proper certifications for her new field. Luckily, she had a minor in Spanish and that helped and she passed all her tests the first time she took them (and Texas has many!). However, now she is certified and guaranteed a 40k+/year job for the next 8 years!

Best of luck, and don't limit yourself to just your degree. Heck, my older brother graduating from the University of Miami with a Criminology/Political Science degree and now makes mad money working for a computer company. Who knows...

Stater of the Obvious wrote:

Q. What do Kinesiology grads say at work every day?

A. Would you like fries with that?

I'll make sure to ask my students if they want fries while we analyze the different shoes such as the Nike Shox, etc in our lab today. I'm getting a PhD in biomechanics...I wonder how we'd have all the nice shoes, etc without an understanding of the human body?

AHHHHHHH! so now we know who to blame for stupid worthless overpriced gimmick shoes like the Shox! its the friggin kinesiologists!

I would suggest double majoring in a basic science like chemistry, math, physics, or biology in addition to kines. That way you get to study the stuff you want in addition to getting the strong grounding in science that you will need should you choose to become a scientist, or pursue medicine. No matter what you end up doing, a strong background in the basic sciences will always serve you well. Better to work your ass off now and lay a strong foundation, than try to make things up later. Think of you're undergrad. as the summer training leading up to a big XC season. The harder you work the better off you'll be in the end.

Uh, that's not totally correct there ace. People do fail in medical school. You are right in the fact that you should not be going to med school if you can't do well on the MCATS. Of course, that's a completely defeatist attitude- playing "not to lose" instead of " playing to win. Further, there's no reason why you can't major in something like kinesiology or literature for that matter and get into med school. I say to the original poster- do what you want and what's going to get you out of bed every morning.

Thank you very much Da Bears........but, with what you said, don't Med Schools have pretty strict entrance guidelines? Like "you must have taken this class, and this class, and such". It seems to me that pretty much any degree not related to biology or biochemistry or something would not allow you to gain entrance into Med School.

Like i said, i don't know exactly what i want to do with this, but i would definitely like to take it far.......like go to grad school, etc. I don't plan on just stopping with an undergrad degree, but i want to know what kinds of things i can do with a Masters, etc. I mean i think it'd be cool to do scientific studies on athletes and such, but i have no idea how you get into that kind of stuff.

getting a background in generalized biology does nothing that med school wont. Ecology is not going to help a pediatrician. You have to take fundamental courses yes, but in your graduate program you learn what you take into the field, you dolt.

Stater of the Obvious wrote:

AHHHHHHH! so now we know who to blame for stupid worthless overpriced gimmick shoes like the Shox! its the friggin kinesiologists!

I don't know about that...I'd tell you they don't do much because they were so stiff you didn't compress the columns unless you were on the plus side of 200 lbs....the concept has merit but the shoes don't show it. But that doesn't keep Nike from selling 'em! Find someone who will pay $$$ for gimmicky shoes ("fashion" people, middle aged businessmen with lots of extra cash lying around) and you can sell anything.

Sorry, my last post was a little out of line now that i read it, but seriously, has there ever been 1 topic on this board that led to a completely normal discussion without people attacking others?(i understand the irony here as i attacked you, i'm just saying....)