Colorado State University

Q. What led you to pursue a major in cultural anthropology?

I actually was going to school to be a journalist, and kind of what embarked me into higher education in the first place was I took a free class online to see if it was something I would be good at … and it was on Hadrian’s Wall. I’ve always loved history, and I’ve always loved people and how they operate and how they interact, but I love writing as well.

That’s why I thought I would be a journalist, but I ended up having to take a humanities class, as everybody does, and I just fell in love with it. After that semester ended, I decided that that was the path I wanted to take because it just felt more compelling to me.

Q. What was the most rewarding part of your CSU experience?

The most rewarding was the study abroad, Hadrian’s Wall class. I think as online students, we tend not to be able to have the capability to have those typical college experiences, and as an adult going back to college, you kind of walk into the educational realm knowing that you’re not going to have those experiences.

To be able to have a study abroad class as my last class, and the capability to have those kinds of college experiences where you get to meet new people and forge friendships and experience all these astronomical things that you wouldn’t have expected in normal life – that by far was my favorite and most impactful.

Q. What is your advice to incoming students at CSU?

Don’t be afraid to try something that you never thought you would want to try. … I think a lot of people come into college with the idea of what they’re going to do, but they don’t know the possibilities of stepping outside those boundaries.

Find comfort in the uncomfortable because there’s always gonna be somebody else there that is just as uncomfortable, and you never know if they’re gonna be your best friend for life, or if you’re gonna find an interest that just absolutely makes your heart beam with joy.

Q. What are your plans for after graduation?

I’m actually really looking forward to being able to apply what I’ve learned. I work for a company that has 200 employees that I work with on a fairly regular basis, and each year our company sends out a survey. … I’ve had conversations with people about these surveys, and it’s hard to get an idea of how your employees are feeling based off of predetermined questions with ABCD answers.

What I would like to do, and the proposal that I’ll be making to our leadership team, is that I will go in and do an ethnographic study of our 200 employees. I’m hoping to present those results to our leadership teams so they have a better idea of how to tailor their marketing programs to better benefit not only our customers but our sales reps who actually want to sell those types of products.