UCI Public Health alumna kick starts a career at local Karate Dojo

Karate and public health isn’t a word pairing you’d normally see in the same sentence. But for recent UCI Public Health alumna, Jasmine Tang Ker, these two areas ended up being the perfect combination and has set a path to becoming a physician. 

Fortunately for this Class of 2022, Jasmine didn’t have to experience the anxiety that may come with having to find a job following graduation as she already had something lined up. During her fourth year at UCI, while checking off the last of her classes for her public health science degree, she turned her practicum requirement (PH195W) into a viable job prospect.

Karate For All came at a time when I had little in-person interaction and was a much needed outlet for that human connection I craved.”

– Jasmine Ker, alumna with the Class of 2022

All public health undergraduate students are required to work in the community at agencies, non-profits, or laboratories dedicated to public health practice during their last few quarters of their degree. Students gain practical work experience during the internship, and classwork helps them to analyze the relationships of coursework, discipline-specific paradigms, and the work environment. 

Being an extrovert and people person, Jasmine had to identify a practicum site during the height of the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders, mandatory quarantine and online classes offered very few opportunities to find an in-person experience – something that she desired. One such site that required her to fulfill her hours in-person was Karate For All, which has been a practicum site for UCI Public Health students since 2019 and has since fostered over 68 undergraduate students. 

“Karate For All came at a time when I had little in-person interaction and was a much needed outlet for that human connection I craved,” said Jasmine. “After graduation, I was offered a full-time position as their volunteer coordinator and it has been such a rewarding experience. I can continue to work with children and use my public health knowledge in a compelling way.”

Karate For All (KFA) is a unique martial arts program that combines the art of karate-do with the concepts of occupational therapy and was inclusively developed for children and teenagers to gain confidence, build community, and learn how to defend themselves. Led by Sensei Wayne Centra, who has over 23 years of occupational therapy experience at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the program offers out-of-the-box therapeutic strategies for young people who may not take to soccer, basketball or other group activities. 

“My vision has always had a public health angle. I’m providing interventions outside of the traditional approaches to break down societal and environmental stressors that impact health and well-being,” said Sensei Wayne. “My staff learn from this different type of occupational therapy approach as much as the students do.” 

Stumbling on a path to become a healer

Jasmine can attest to Sensai Wayne’s point since she came in with no prior karate experience let alone working with children, but has since found her calling at KFA. Not only has she learned how to provide sensory processing skills, gross motor skills, and social and language development, but also how to encourage and build community with the children and their parents.

One of Jasmine’s most memorable experiences was when she noticed a disengaged student who never participated or stepped onto the mat. She took the initiative to spend one-on-one time to build rapport and trust with the student. She quickly discovered that the student was unresponsive to words like “punch” and “kick” so she changed her communication style to resonate with the student like “high five,” to high five with fingers tucked in, to now the student is fully engaged with the class emulating the proper karate movements. Jasmine was able to incorporate her public health communication strategies she learned during her undergraduate career to help her students. 

“In this full-time position, I am helping volunteers that were just like me gain confidence as they begin to think about their future careers while also being part of an amazing community,” Jasmine said. “Without my practicum experience, I would not have known my passion for working with children. It has inspired me to pursue becoming a primary care physician so that I can serve and heal as I have learned to love to do at KFA.”