Hometown:
Pocatello, ID
I have always loved people and knew that I wanted to work with people. What I didn’t realize until I got to BYU is that almost every profession works with people, and I quickly got overwhelmed by my options. Each week when someone would ask me what I was studying, I would tell them my current plan that I was confident in and then entirely switch that plan the next week to something completely different. It wasn’t until I seriously started to explore majors and careers that I was able to narrow down my options to something that was a good fit for me! Now, I am majoring in human development and am excited to keep learning about how to work with specific groups of people and one day have a career in social work!
Exploration Experience: Growing up, I was always the person who got in trouble in class for talking. My whole life I have loved being around people, finding connections and having as many experiences with my friends as possible. I also found a love for volunteering in my community in Idaho and thought it was so fulfilling to make a difference in the lives of those around me. Because of these passions when it came to deciding what I wanted to do for a career, I knew I wanted to help people. I wanted to make a difference and see change happening.
I thought I had figured it all out, but I didn’t realize how broad my passions were. So many careers enable you to help people and make a difference as well as give you useful skills to do humanitarian work. I became lost in my options. I would find a major that sounded good and start telling people that is what I wanted to do, but my heart was never really set on it. I settled on business for a while and started taking pre-business classes. They taught me a lot, but something was missing. I didn’t feel engaged in my classes and I wasn’t passionate about what I was learning. It was at that point that I set up an appointment with an academic advisor.
The academic advisor gave me a lot of great advice. They explained that based on the type of impact I wanted to have in my career it mattered less about what major I was graduating from and more about the experience I was gaining and the connections I was making. This helped me refocus my efforts to find clubs and fun opportunities on campus. I started to look at my time here differently and get excited about building a network. It also took the pressure off trying to find the perfect major. I started focusing more on what classes I loved and enjoyed learning. With this mindset I signed up for a couple of courses that I thought might interest me. I took a class about the lifespan and human development of people and I absolutely loved it! It didn’t feel like I was doing homework because I loved studying, learning, and writing about people in different circumstances. With this class and some additional research, I felt ready to declare my major in human development!
Why is Exploring Important to Me? I think it is important to explore because BYU has so much to offer its students. There are so many opportunities, resources, and options when it comes to careers, majors, and experience, that you would be selling yourself short if you didn’t explore. I believe that information leads to revelation and as we learn more about ourselves and start to walk down different avenues, we can start to see a clearer vision of what is right for us. I also think exploration gives you confidence and support in what you want to do and how you are going to get there. It is an opportunity to ask yourself what matters to you most and what you really want in life.
Looking Back: Looking back, I wish I could have felt comfortable not knowing what I wanted to do. I felt a lot of pressure to know where I was headed and to be confident in my path. But I wish I had admitted sooner that I didn’t know exactly what was right for me so I could start doing the work to discover what I really wanted to happen and find a good fit for me. Additionally, for a while it was hard for me to have an open mind because I had held onto a career path that for most of my childhood I thought I was going to do, and I didn’t want to give that up even when it wasn’t working. Looking back, I think developing that open mind earlier would have helped me be ready to act sooner and connect with resources at BYU that have been so helpful!
Favorites:
- Book: The Hunger Games series
- Movie: Pride and Prejudice
- Food: Sushi and anything with peanut butter and chocolate
- Animal: Moose
- Color: Light pink
Does Pineapple Belong on Pizza? I love a good sweet and savory mix, so I am always down for Hawaiian pizza!
Boring Fact About Me: I have eaten whale before.
Hobbies:
- Going to BYU games
- Baking
- Partying at concerts
- Watching movies
- Playing sports