Recent alumnae reached back to aid current students in understanding the challenges that lie ahead both during school and what obstacles come after graduation.
Sariah Roberts, a 20-year-old SUU alumna from Manti, knows what it is like to have uncertain goals.
“I definitely had plans starting college,” Roberts said. “They changed quite often. But when I started SUU I was convinced I was going to … get a Ph.D. in counseling, open my own practice and save people and by the time I graduated I was volunteering and working with victims and decided that’s my real line of work.”
Roberts graduated from SUU in psychology and Criminal Justice in May 2009. However, life after graduation wasn’t as clear-cut as she expected.
“After I graduated I felt like I was in a stand still,” Roberts said. “I knew the idea was to go out get a job and become a real person but I didn’t quite know how to do that. I’d spent so much of my life being a student I wasn’t sure how to transition.”
Her plan changed from saving people to getting a job and stabilizing herself and after searching for several months after graduation she was able to find a job.
“My job wasn’t really what I expected to be doing but I have found that I enjoy the challenge and the change for the time being,” Roberts said. “Amusingly enough I work as an employment counselor with (The Department of Workforce Services) and my job is a stimulus position. So in many ways the economy has been a blessing in disguise for me.”
SUU alumna Jenny Snarr from Murray, 20, just earned her degree in political science but now she has second thoughts about what she will do with it.
“I’ve realized that I might want to be a high school teacher but did not take the teaching certification classes while in school,” Snarr said.
The highest employers according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the month of November 2009 were those businesses in the education and health services field employing 32,492,000 people nation wide.
Snarr said that if she chooses to become a teacher it will require her to go through a lot more education to be able to do so.
Planning for the future can be hard but Snarr advised students to work hard.
“Don’t procrastinate,” she said.
She also found her husband to be good motivation because of her competitive spirit she wanted to get better grades than he did.
Roberts said that she would have liked to know a few things.
“That it’s different to work … than it is to go to classes and take notes,” Roberts said. “A big surprise for me was learning just to act like an adult … I found that too much of my SUU experience I was still reliant on my professors or my roommates or the landlord or my parents etc. Basically I was treated as a student and its been an eye-opener when I realized that I’m an adult and should know and do adult things.
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