[Music] so my name is Sarah and I'm going into my junior
year here at University of Nevada, Reno. I've been a part of the Honors College since my
first semester and I'm currently studying chemistry with a minor in painting and on
top of that I have worked on off-campus jobs but now I mainly work off campus as
a medical assistant and as a youth soccer coach and on top of that I have lived both on
and off campus and I'm originally from Sacramento So, at first I decided to go to UNR just because
they gave amazing financial aid and they also had really good research opportunities starting off
right off the bat of when you're a freshman they love seeing students being involved on campus
with a bunch of different activities including research and everyone I've met here has just been
so supportive and so welcoming that it just felt at home right away and at first I didn't apply
to the Honors College since I was unsure if I wanted to do it but once being on campus and
meeting some friends who want in the Honors College that really kind of pushed me to want to
go ahead and apply so I did I applied to months into my first semester here and it was a pretty
simple process and I ended up applying because I really wanted to join my friends and get all
the opportunities honors college offers um and ever since then it's been such a great fit. So
the Honors College has enhanced everything just because it's been such a strong academic support
um so there's something we do here called life checks which is once a semester you come and
talk about about how everything's going and those really helped me focus on my goals
for the semester so I set plans of what I want to do for Honors College um and also just
making sure I'm staying on track and enjoying what I'm doing and on top of that they have an
amazing lounger which offers good resources for students good places to hang out and study and
you also just get to meet a lot of really cool friends and mentors here and with the mentors
as well gives you experience into what they do in their career and allows you to go ahead and
test out and see what you want to do in the future so there are two one of them is Nevada
student ambassadors I've been doing that since my freshman year and we are essentially
the tour guides on campus it's been super fun I've been able to travel with some friends
out of state to represent the university as well as give tours to respective students
and has also opened up a lot of doors for me in terms of meeting graduated ambassadors who
go ahead and tell us more about what they do for their extension jobs and I'm also a part
of STEM which is called out and stem it's a queer stem Club on campus and that was just
really fun since we do craft nights we just get to hang out it happens once a week and
it's always just something new there and I just really enjoy the people I hang out with
well I've grown quite a bit so when I first joined the Honors College I was very much
more shy I would say I wasn't comfortable speaking out loud in public but after joining
the Honors college and really starting to meet new people it kind of forced me to go ahead and
be more social because I really wanted to b ranch out and meet more um different students um
advisers professors and everything like that so it did take a little bit of time but ever
since then I've been able to become a lot more open and be comfortable talking to new people and
trying to find experiences for myself that align with what I want to do in the future and Honors
colleges have been a great help for me to do that I have to think about this one for a moment here
um I would say my biggest challenge was actually figuring out what I wanted to do when I came into
college since I had a rough start of like I'm not want to do something with science maybe with art
but the Honors college itself has also helped me guide me figure out what it is I wanted to do so
with that my biggest challenge was honestly just figuring out what I want to do with my life
so at this point I want to either get my MD or my PhD and worked in Academia and also in
the medical field and I wouldn't been able to really figure it out without Honors College just
because with those life checks I always like I really like this one part of this one class
but I'm not a fan of the other so now figure out what I want to do has been um definitely
a big challenge took me a few different Majors to figure out where I wanted to go but um ever
since then it's been smooth sailing from there so the owners colle has helped me realize that
I do have the potential to go ahead and go off to a high-end CFT program by that I mean pursuing
my MD or PhD um so they gave me the confidence to be like hey your occupation already does look
pretty great here are some other things you could add on here's what you need to do and if
you need support here's some contacts who have gone through MD your PhD route or currently going
through it so they've just been able to give me a lot of support and help me figure out what it
is I want to do and make sure I reach the goals. My biggest advice is it's okay to change it's
scary I know but it's part of growing and part of growing up as well so with that if if you're
not not liking a class and you're major that's okay go ahead and change it do something that
you want to do something you're passionate about it may take you a few different times to
go ahead and get there it took me about three majors and two minors to figure out what I wanted
to do but it's just all part of the journey and you have time in college and college is a once
in A- lifetime experience so really just make it everything you want it to be by going
out there finding groups finding friends Finding what you want to do with your life
[Music] The honors college so I think one of my favorite things was um my first ever dead Day
event which is when Honors College will'll just go ahead and open up parts at the library or
their honors Lounge here and provide us food and that's the first time I really felt at home
in the Honors College because that's when I got to see so many other honors students and I
remember just sitting down just going to eat study right before my finals and um someone
came down sit next to me and we just talked for the next two hours did I get sidetracked
absolutely was it worth it also absolutely and from there he kept on growing with friends
another thing was taking the honors I believe honors 112 class or 110 which is global thousand
experiences that was such an amazing class as I found a lot of friends in there and I got to
work on really cool projects and really mix the scientific and art mind that I have by making
really amazing presentations paintings everything like that so it really just allowed me to go
ahead and see how I could express creativity through a scientific lens which is what
I continue to do throughout art at this oh gosh oh I could go so many
different ways with this let's see I have to think about this one oh when I was
younger um without any kind of stretching I used to be incredibly flexible so I could make
myself into a pretzel by putting my knees over my head and just walking around on my hands that
was my talent show activity but other than that I guess something else that's kind of fun fact is
that I have tattooed myself twice um just because I love art and like putting it wherever I can
so if that means on myself I'll do it on myself [Music]