Scholar Stories: Gall Pursuing Her Passion in Children's Mental Health
11/2/2022 11:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country, Women's Track & Field, Features
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Absopure.
By Matthew Mahoney
At the University of Michigan, Amber Gall has found her passion, community and lifelong best friends, but things easily could have looked a lot different. Gall, after all, only reached out to Michigan on a whim.
"One of my high school coaches recommended reaching out to Michigan just because of the combination of academics and athletics," Gall said. The visit went well, and Gall felt at home. "I ended up taking my visit here -- it was my first visit -- and I absolutely loved it."
Wherever Gall ended up, there were certain values that were important to her. Growing up in small-town Shepherd, Mich., a jump to a school with tens of thousands of students would be a big transition. What she saw from Michigan was comforting.
"I loved the sense of community at Michigan," Gall said. "The campus is pretty close together, and I loved the team, the coaches and the campus in general."
That same love for a sense of community and relationships that brought Gall to Ann Arbor is exactly what has drawn her to her academic pursuits. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology and is now pursuing a master's in social work. In the future, she wants to eventually work with children with mental health disorders and discovered that passion at Michigan.
"I ended up taking a couple of classes in childhood psychopathology my sophomore year and absolutely loved the topic," Gall said. "I was writing diagnosis papers and treatment papers, loved it, and from there, I realized I wanted to go into child mental health."
After realizing what she wanted to do, Gall has felt at home working with kids, and she has shown how much she values her community by giving back to it with her professional experience. Using her experience with horses growing up, Gall has utilized her summers working at HopeWell Ranch, an equine-assisted therapy farm near her hometown, and the experiences she has had there have been priceless.
"Working there this summer was a very valuable experience, learning how to teach what I've learned, incorporating the stuff I've learned from undergrad, and seeing the impact of the work that I'm doing at the ranch," she said.
Gall's work is deeply rooted in trying to help people but also developing relationships and caring for the people she works with.
"I worked with two different kids and built really strong relationships with them," she said. "So it was nice to see them grow and progress throughout the summer, especially watching them start to understand emotional regulation. It's really rewarding to see them get excited about learning more about mental health."
Through her work at the ranch and experience on the cross country and track teams, Gall has clearly displayed what things are important to her -- relationships and community. At Michigan, she brings these same values to the table, and being a part of a team -- not just any team, but a tight-knit group -- is exactly what she wanted.
"I adore this team; they're my family here," Gall said. "I'm a homebody, and I love being with my friends and family, so sometimes it can be really hard when I'm away from my family. The team all live in the same area, so we'll go to each other's house and start talking or stop by on a walk and study together. I think that really helps build the community more and makes me feel very supported here."
This sense of community is something that has been emphasized throughout both the cross country and track and field programs, and the culture at Michigan is unique.
"My freshman year, at the Big Ten Indoor Championships, we really started emphasizing making the programs combined, and being a super connected team, both men and women," said Gall about her favorite moments at Michigan. "We did a lot of team building that year, and the energy that we brought -- energy that I felt like other teams didn't bring -- was insane."
At the 2020 Big Ten Championships, Gall ran a career best time of 2:07.47 in the 800 meters to place seventh overall. Gall recalls that, "Everyone was running up to me and saying they were proud of me after my race. Just having that dialogue between the entire team, we were all working together really well."
For Gall, representing Michigan means so much more than just herself, and the relationships she has built will last much longer than her four years in Ann Arbor.
"I've met some people that are going to be my best friends for the rest of my life," she said. "I joke that I found my bridesmaids here, and it's this group of people that I found a community and family with. It's been unreal, being able to push myself academically and athletically.
"Just knowing that I get to wear the same block M that people did 45 years ago, and knowing I can make a difference when I wear it. Not just because of the block M, but how I live and how I act while I'm wearing that block M, shows a lot more about who I am as a person and what I believe in than anything else."
