SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Berg cracks the code on combining business and chiropractic
MINOT, N.D. – Not many Minot State alumni can say they have been part of campus life since birth.
Sydney Berg ’25, however, can boast that thanks to her mom, Kristi (Schaefer) Berg ’95/’00, Minot State professor, who began her career as a graduate teaching assistant in 1999 — two years before Berg was born.
The choice for her to stay and attend Minot State was an easy one.
“My mom is a professor here, and I have grown up around Minot State since I was little,” said Berg. “It just seemed like the right decision to stay close to home.”
The Minot native has known she wanted a career in the medical field nearly her entire life. She has seen a chiropractor since she was about 13 years old due to an injury, and her experience through her treatment left a lasting impact on her view of the chiropractic field.
“I have had the opportunity to work and job shadow many different chiropractors,” Berg said. “It has been very interesting for me to see all the different areas you can specialize in and all the different routes you can take to treat each patient. It isn’t all about just cracking your back and you’re out; you can do muscle work, cupping, etc. These experiences have played a huge role in my life this far. I really want to focus on pediatrics, pregnant women, and functional neurology as I grow in my chiropractic journey.”
With her goal of going to chiropractic school, Berg started working on her prerequisites.
“When I began at MSU, I was majoring in exercise science and rehabilitation,” she said. “I’d taken a lot of classes. I was starting to finish my science classes way earlier than I thought I would during my freshman year. I had taken all the anatomy courses required. Then I thought, I’m kind of stuck. I could keep going on this path, but I knew I wanted something different, to add a little bit more variety. Minot State had started the individualized studies program, and I had talked to Sophia (Rammel), and she said we can definitely make this work.”
Berg’s goal was to earn her bachelor’s degree before leaving MSU and heading to chiropractic school, even though students only need 90 credits to be accepted into the program. The individualized studies degree gave her the opportunity to explore all three of her areas of interest: exercise science and rehabilitation, entrepreneurship, and deaf studies.
“I knew I wanted to own my own business someday after going to chiropractic school. So, I was like, that would be perfect to add entrepreneurship with the exercise science,” she said. “Also, taking a sign language class as an elective in my freshman year, I loved it, and I thought maybe I could take more ASL courses, and it worked out. You can take 15 credits from each area if you have three discipline areas. It really sparked my interest, and there were enough classes to fill my schedule. That’s why I combined those three disciplines, and the exercise science filled all my requirements for chiropractic school admission.”
The Bachelor of Individualized Studies (BIS) major, although no longer available for new freshman at MSU, discovered one of her areas of academic focus thanks to the encouragement of her mom to try a business class. At first, she resisted, but eventually gave in — and ended up loving it. The entrepreneurship course opened her eyes to what it really takes to run a business.
“I want to own my own business, but I don't really know all that goes into it, and all the entrepreneurship classes that were available here really opened my eyes,” Berg said. “Wow, there's a lot of stuff that I didn't know, and I would probably need to know down the road. With my mom teaching business, she was like, ‘just take a business class, I know you would enjoy it.’ And I told her no, I'm not doing it. It just doesn't sound like me. She continued to encourage me to just try it. So, when I tried it and really enjoyed it, I was quite surprised. I told her I'm in an entrepreneurship class right now, and I have read the textbook front to back, as it is full of relatable information for my near future.
“Have you ever heard of anybody doing that? It really set me up for how to set up a business, and it gave me all the information, so that really helped. Getting me a step ahead for when I graduate, knowing I have a plan in place, because you don't learn that stuff in chiropractic school. From what I've heard. It’s very nice that Minot State has given me the foundation for that.”
Randy Conway ’92, director of the Severson Entrepreneurship Academy, helped guide Berg through her project for the individualized studies program. Building off Conway’s popular Entrepreneurial Perspective series, Berg planned a special panel of local medical entrepreneurs.
“I thought this would be great and was something that I really wanted to do,” she said. “I thought it all up and brought it to him (Conway). Would it be possible to have one in the series that you're already doing, but bring in entrepreneurs in the medical field in Minot or North Dakota, and people that were also graduates from Minot State? He said, ‘yeah, let's try it.’ We really did it together, but he kind of let me take the reins on it and find people that I wanted to contact and set up the event. It was a lot of hands-on work, and was really fun.
“In bigger schools, I feel like it wouldn't really be much of an option. I feel like here, since it's smaller and there's a tighter knit community, they let the students try. Even if it's something different. It was a big success.”
Berg’s degree piqued the interest of the chiropractic school she applied to last summer, while others went on the more traditional route with science focused degrees.
“My admissions counselor is really great,” she said. “I’ve had her contact information for quite a while, so I’ve been able to talk with her and Sophia to make sure that this was a plan that was going to work. They saw it coming to life down there and were like, ‘wow, we’ve never had anybody do this before,’ and it was really great. But that was my goal.
“I wanted to stand out and have something different that makes people say, ‘wow, it's impressive that you went the extra mile rather than following the standard path.' The response was very positive, and they truly appreciated the extra effort."
With her undergraduate graduation behind her, Berg looks forward to her next step in education. Accepted last winter to the Palmer College of Chiropractic, she will move to Davenport, Iowa, in July.
“There’s quite a few options. There’s a school in Minneapolis, Iowa, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina that I know of,” she said. “The recruiting and admissions stuff is such a huge part. You guys (Minot State) do such a great job here recruiting, and when people come to tour, you really roll out the red carpet cause you want them to come here, and that’s how it was when we went to Palmer, Iowa. They had a great presentation about what was to come in my future at Palmer. We got a free shirt and coffee mug, you know, things like that. They also paid for us to come there, which is huge. They paid for our travel and our hotel rooms when we were there. They really made it feel like they wanted me to come and be a part of their school.
“It felt very welcoming. I was like, OK, this is where I want to be.”
Even with the warm welcome waiting for her in Iowa, Berg looks forward to returning to the Magic City.
“After I graduate, my plan is to come back to Minot,” said Berg. “It's home, and I love it here. I know so many people, and it just feels like a good space to be.”
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Published: 05/23/25
