My overall experience in the Woodbury School of Business was amazing. I majored in Human Resource Management, and the HR program at UVU helped me find so much fulfillment in my education and passion towards an HR career. I had the best professors, internship experiences, and resources at UVU that helped me achieve my goals.

While I was in the HR program, I was heavily involved in the UVU SHRM Student Chapter. For two years I was the SHRM VP of social media and marketing, where I managed all our social media platforms to keep students aware of SHRM events, potential work opportunities, and HR trends. This gave me the opportunity to mentor my HR classmates on their academic journey and empower them to get involved in SHRM. I also participated in three HR case competitions. Those were a HUGE part of my experience in the HR program and gave me exposure to real life business/HR scenarios! These business case competitions gave a group of students and I the opportunity to work together on a case study for a week and present our HR-based recommendations/solutions to a panel of judges. My sophomore year I participated in the UVU SHRM Student Case Competition, and then my junior year I participated in the UVU one again as well as the SHRM Student State Case Competition. My junior year, my group and I took first place at both the UVU and SHRM State competitions! As a full-time student, I also took advantage of the opportunity to do two HR internships. The first internship I did was with O.C. Tanner in Salt Lake, and the second was with WCF Insurance in Sandy. An internship for school credit is required to graduate, but intern experience was also strongly encouraged by all my professors. They knew that the more work experience we had the better. By networking with my professors, I was able to get my internship at WCF Insurance. My internships pushed me out of comfort zone and taught me how to work hard.

What I love most about UVU is the mindset of engaged learning. In every HR class, part of the curriculum and HR program was doing HR consulting projects. Our professors had us students participating and completing many consulting projects with local Utah companies every semester. I developed skills and had exposure to real life HR in companies. My education in the business school wasn’t just about studying to make sure I performed well on my exams, it was also about getting real HR experience. This helped me be more qualified and ready to enter the HR workspace when I graduated in May. All the consulting projects taught me and prepared me to work hard in life and my future career.

I owe so much of my success in the HR program to Jon Westover, Bernd Kupka, and Rod Lacey. Some of my favorite HR classes were Organizational Development, HR Training and Development, and HR Strategy. These three professors will do anything for their students and were always willing to help me. I will never forget two of the very first business classes and some of the last business classes I took at UVU. That first semester, I took the Written Business Communications class from Jennie Barber and Business Presentations from Neal Maxfield. Some of my last semesters I took Business Calculus from Carolyn Hamilton and the Business Capstone class from Patrick Milligan. These four classes have always stood out to me as some of my favorites. Each of these classes were awesome because they taught me different skills and knowledge on all aspects of business, but they were also some of my favorite classes because each of these professors took such an interest in me and my education, and they helped me be successful in their class. I will always be so grateful for the professors I had at UVU and the positive impact they had on my education.

 It sure has been a crazy time to graduate from college. With all the COVID-19 circumstances it was difficult at first to find work in the job market. I feel fortunate that I was able to get a job in the HR department at MetaSource! They are located in Draper, Utah and I am loving my time there.

My greatest take-away from my time in college has been to find joy in the journey. We all want to be successful and to do our best, but with that comes a lot of responsibilities and stress. My advice to students is to soak up your time getting your education at UVU, take things day by day, and be grateful for all the good and bad times. Don’t be afraid to fail, and when you do fail, laugh it off and keep trying. There is growth when we push ourselves out of our comfort zones! If we have a positive attitude and outlook on all things in life, we will be more successful and happy.