UVU has been amazing. I've never been around people who have worked with me so well. I've never experienced professors who are so supportive and caring.
Growing up, I always thought physics and astronomy were cool because I really liked space. Senior year of high school, I took a physics class, and our very first lesson was on relativity. I thought it was super cool. But I actually wanted to be a veterinarian for a long time. My high school years were a little topsy-turvy and rough at some points. So, when I graduated high school, I had no plans of getting any higher education.
I got a job as a vet tech, and I thought I could do that for the rest of my life. I did that for a year, but [ultimately] decided it wasn't for me. After I was done being a vet tech, I worked in retail. One day, I was talking to my sister, and she was like, “Well, you're really smart, and you like science. Why don't you apply for college?” I decided it was something good to try because I didn't feel like I was being utilized folding clothes in a store. I started feeling like I could do more.
Stars always made me cry. Growing up, my dad had magazines about science and astronomy. I always thought they were super cool and wanted to read them. I thought [that by] going to school [I’d] be able to read all those magazines and know what's going on in the world.
I wanted to stay in Utah so I could be around family and pay in-state tuition. UVU just kind of made sense when we were looking at the options for schools in Utah. I think I had that conversation with my sister about going to college on a Monday, and then that weekend, I went over to her house, we applied, and I was off to school.
My experience (at UVU) has been phenomenal. Going from high school, where I was not very into the whole school thing at all, and coming to UVU, I wasn't sure what to expect. You hear horror stories of college and professors being scary and hard. But it's been amazing. Being in the physics department has been amazing. The professors are all amazing. I've never been around people who have worked with me so well. I've never experienced professors who are so supportive and caring. I remember I went to a professor and shared some stuff going on in my life [that] was making it really hard to do school. Immediately, they were there to help. They were so encouraging and offered to meet every day to help me succeed. I feel like the entire physics department is on my side, cheering for me. I’ve tried to convince my friends back in St. George to go to UVU because it’s so great.
My proudest moment at UVU has been taking the research and work that I've been doing with Dr. Jensen in the physics department and bringing that to the American Astronomical Society Conference. It's a national conference [that] I've been able to go twice now. I got to make a poster, present my research to other astronomers and doctors, have conversations with them, and explain what I'm doing. It’s been very meaningful to have these conversations and proudly represent this university that not everyone has heard of. I’m coming from this state university, yet I’m speaking to people from NASA, researchers, and people who have TV shows on National Geographic about astronomy, and they’re interested in what I have to say.
With some research I’m doing, we’re measuring distances to galaxies. We want to be able to calibrate those measurements by using a galaxy that's closer. One way to make this calibration is using the James Webb Space Telescope. [The telescope] can have high resolution at close distances, which, because we're able to see everything individually, will give us really accurate measurements. Normally, the galaxies that we take measurements to are about 300 million light years away. So, one of our collaborators wrote a proposal to use the James Webb [Space] Telescope, and it was approved. Because they are collaborators here at UVU, we are also able to use data from this telescope.
After I graduate from UVU, I want to go to grad school for astronomy, which will be another five to seven years of schooling. I want to study something similar to what I'm doing now with cosmology [and] looking at galaxies.
I'd love to study dark matter in grad school because it's just so cool. We don't know what it is. It’s weird. It's one of those things where I could study until the day I die and still have no idea. I could study it and figure out what it is. It's high risk, high reward. The fact we don't know what it is bothers me because it's affecting our universe. I just think it's really interesting.
My biggest piece of advice is if you have a professor that you feel close enough to talk to, don't be afraid to reach out in any way, whether it's with your schoolwork or your personal life. There are professors I have talked to about stuff I was too afraid to even talk to my family [about]. [When] your professors know what’s going on, that will make your life so much easier. It’s going to make life easier on [the professors] too [because] they're not going to be frustrated with you for not doing your work. I have gotten so much support from the professors here in my schoolwork and my life.
