Career options galore for St. Saviour’s junior

Flatbush resident Melina Roberts, a junior at St. Saviour’s High School, has a very bright future ahead of her.

The loquacious 16-year-old is enrolled in the State Pre-College Enrichment Program (S-PREP) at Columbia University, which is a program for academically-inclined minority students who have an interest in a career in health care. She is the only student in the school who is a participant.

Every Saturday morning, Roberts attends SAT prep classes at Columbia and in the afternoon takes a class on nutrition, dubbed, “Chew on This.”

“It’s cool; it’s fun. I am just trying to figure out what I like,” said Roberts, who discovered through the program that a science-centric profession is not for her. “This will help me know what I want to do.”

Roberts is a bookworm whose favorite subject is history. She especially enjoys biographies and stories about slaves, as well as people involved in politics. Roberts also reads crime stories — one of her favorite authors is Michael Connolly — and watches crime shows on television.

Roberts said that picking out colleges is a “work in progress” but that she is open to the idea of studying abroad, especially in Australia.

As for her career, she said she would like to work with children.

I feel like I want to help children out. I want to be a family lawyer who deals with international adoption,” she said. “If I can help someone else out, why not?”

The bubbly teen said that she once toyed with the idea of going into the medical field after she took a class on curing diseases at the Museum of Natural History.

“Maybe I can be an oncologist, but I don’t know if I can deal with the death of patients,” she said. “I also want to be a part of Make a Wish and am interested in Doctors Without Borders.”

Whatever she decides, Roberts is sure to succeed.