Student Profiles

The Campus

I like it here a lot — it's interesting. I love the campus. It's beautiful and the atmosphere is great because everyone is nice and lively.

My Experience

It's more difficult than high school but if you stay on top of everything, it's pretty easy. I'm in the Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) and pre-veterinary clubs. I'm also an ambassador for the Natural Resource Ecology and Management department. So, I go to high schools and speak to students to get them interested in our program.

Many of my friends went to other universities, so I didn't know anyone when I came here. I've met a lot of people I really like. I started in the Academic Program for Excellence (APEX) this summer. I took classes over the summer and it helped me get acclimated to college life. We took a classes that helped us learn how to study, where to study and how to take notes. It's a great program and I really appreciated it. When I started classes in the fall classes I knew other students and I wasn't lost.

My Plans

I want to go to graduate school and maybe veterinary school. I'm hoping to do field research on big cats, like tigers, lions and cougars, which means I could work on population studies, behavioral studies, diseases, genetics and those kinds of things. I've always liked animals and I became interested in this field because I watched the animal planet and I found this topic interesting.

Learning Community

I'm in a learning community and it's fun. A learning community brings together the students who are your peers. We study together and get to know each other. It's pretty cool because we are all interested in the same area of study. We also have upperclassmen as our mentors and we have an adviser from the department.

My Advice to Incoming Students

Don't be scared. It's a lot of fun and for some people it's pretty easy to adapt. I just fell in love with the campus because there's trees and grass and it feels close to nature. Professors can help you with everything so it's really good to get to know your professors.

My advisers are really helpful. I can go to them anytime. I have several people I can go to for help. I recently talked to one of my advisers and he helped me plan my course work to get into veterinary school.

Study Abroad

This May I'm going to Costa Rica to study food science and ecology.