Tyler Griggers, Louisiana Tech Kinesiology – B.S. Kinesiology & Health Sciences – Class of 2019
I’m a former Track and Field athlete who competed in the men’s javelin throw. I originally started out in Engineering for a year before switching majors. During my first year with the engineering department, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the crowd, never got to know any of the professors, and honestly just didn’t enjoy that field of study. I made the switch my sophomore year into a field that I naturally was curious about. Kinesiology, to sum it up, is the study of how the body moves. Being an athlete, I wanted to be the best I could be. As I got further into my studies and my relationships with the faculty grew, I was able to perform independent tests on applied forces that would correlate directly into my javelin throw. I also learned about nutrition, and nutrient timing which fueled my body to preform instead of cramp as I recall one quarter having terrible body cramps. After taking everything I was learning and applying it to my training, I eventually qualified for the Division 1 NCAA’s regionals and competed against the best in the country. Now that you know about my past, let’s talk about the present.
At the time I’m writing this, it’s the end of year 2023 and I reside in Jacksonville, Florida with my beautiful fiancé and two dogs. I work full time for a medical device company called Stryker and have been with them for four years now. More specifically, I am a part of the Trauma and Extremities division. Basically, my job is to provide orthopedic surgeons with the hardware they need to correct broken bones. My job includes standing in on surgeries daily and assisting on fracture reduction, while being an expert on the product that is being used to provide any useful tips or answer questions. I’m able to use my degree daily due to my knowledge of anatomy and how these different forces (muscles) will pull on the bone at their attachment points thus misaligning the fracture. I’ve done it all, from the broken finger, to the 2 am poly trauma who got in a car wreck and broke everything they could. There is a wide variety of the day-to-day surgeries, so no day is ever the same redundant process.
Stryker is also such a large company that they have 18 divisions, across over 75 countries, employing over 51 thousand employees. Something we started doing in the recent years are summer internships. If you are a junior going into your final year, you are eligible to apply for this 3 month long paid internship with us, and you might end up in a cool place like Florida with me.
The Exponential Factor 