ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

Abby Sanderson (00:00):
I ended up at Puget Sound because my mom really wanted me to tour it, and my college counselor really wanted me to tour it. And at the time I really thought I wanted to be kind of go to a school out of state, but I ended up going on the tour and it sounds silly, but I did the smile test on campus. I smiled as many people as I could, and so many people were so friendly and wanted to tell me about their experience here at Puget Sound. So I kind of just had this gut feeling that it was a good place for me, the right place for me. So yeah, I think obviously there were other things, like it had the programs I was looking for and a ton of different clubs and cool things that I could see myself in. But yeah, I really do think it comes down to, it felt super friendly and supportive and a place that I could be really successful in.

Narrator (00:52):
This is Greater, We Ascend, a podcast from the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú about Loggers reaching to the heights.

Abby Sanderson (01:01):
Hi, my name's Abby Sanderson. I'm a senior at the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. I'm an econ major and business minor, and I'm from Seattle, Washington.

(01:09):
The faculty are another huge reason I picked Puget Sound. I'm a tour guide and I tell people all the time that there are kind of two main reasons I picked Puget Sound. One is obviously the friendliness and supportiveness of the student body, and the other is the faculty. We're really able to build super personal relationships with faculty and they want to get to know us, not just as students, but as people, which is super cool. My best example of this is that my econ professor stayed. He knew I stayed on campus the summer after my freshman year, which a lot of students don't do until sophomore or junior year. So I didn't know a ton of people because a lot of my friends had gone home and my econ advisor offered to come walk his dog with me on campus so that I kind of had a familiar face.

(02:06):
And he's also a DJ on the weekends, and so he invited me to watch him DJ, like a family block party. So yeah, you build really, really close relationships with professors, which is great for me because it makes me even more motivated to do well in the classroom. And I really feel super supported, as a student and as a person here. Throughout my time on campus, I've been involved in a ton of things on campus. I was the director of events and public relations for ASUPS, our student government. I was president of Maroon Society, which is our student alumni group. I worked for the social media team for admissions. I interned at the Tacoma Art Museum through the Summer Fellowship Internship program. I served as the student representative on a hiring committee for the vice president of Marketing & Communications. I served as the student representative on the Board of Trustees development committee.

(02:58):
I studied abroad last semester in Copenhagen, and currently I'm involved by volunteering with the Office of International Programs. And this semester I have two radio shows on KUPS The Sound, with a few of my friends.

(03:15):
I think at Puget Sound, it's super easy and inviting to get involved here. So when I started my college journey, I didn't imagine if you would've told me that list. I think I would've been shocked and had a lot of disbelief. But it's super easy to get involved here. So as soon as you get here, people are inviting you to join different things and asking you to be a part of different things. And a college campus, in particularly a college campus like Puget Sound is great for a curious, active learner. So there's all these opportunities to have hands-on learning within and outside of the classroom. Yeah, I mean, thinking about why I got involved in so many things, it wasn't necessarily an intentional effort.

(04:04):
There's just so many great things on campus to join that. It's kind of hard to say. No. Experiential learning has had a huge impact on my time here at Puget Sound. Obviously there's so many important learning opportunities that happen in the classroom, but I think some of the largest learning experiences happen through some of the Puget Sound experiences I've had outside of the classroom. I've done a few pretty large experiential learning activities here. I guess in my time at Puget Sound. One that comes to mind is my internship at the Tacoma Art Museum. And I did that through a program here called the Summer Fellowship Internship Program. And basically what that program does is give students a stipend to work at a nonprofit over the summer. And so I got to work in the development department at Tacoma Art Museum. And I think that experience taught me so much about being intentional with language.

(05:13):
I got to spend a lot of time around grant writers, which was so cool, and people that spend a lot of time thinking about how to represent the museum. And obviously I learned so much in the classroom, like I said, but there's nothing like going out into the real world and having those experiences where you have to take your knowledge and take those in classrooms, in classroom learnings and apply them to an outside case. My first day of the Tacoma Art Museum internship, I showed up and I didn't realize that there was going to be another Puget Sound student who I was paired with to work over the summer. And we showed up on the first day, and I got pretty nervous because I think that we couldn't be more different on paper. They're an art history major. I'm an econ major. They showed up in all black and all this cool jewelry, and I showed up in a pink jumpsuit for the first day.

(06:18):
So on paper, we were super different. We came from very different circles on campus and kind of two different sides of campus. But then it was kind of the privilege of my college journey to get to know them over that summer. And it's not something that would've happened unless we had both interned at Tam and over the summer. I think I learned so much from them and the different perspective they brought from being an art history major and art major. And we actually learned throughout the summer that we ended up complimenting each other super well. So when it was time to write emails asking for money or donations or stuff like that, I was jumping on that. And then when it was more kind of artistic creative endeavors, they really took the lead. But we both got to help and learn a ton from each other.

(07:17):
And one of my favorite things now is that our radio show that we're doing this semester together now, because we're still friends, we start each episode where they'll ask me a question about econ and I get to ask them a question about art or art history. So it's just a lot of fun and a lot of learning, and I think experiential learning encompasses so many experiences. But one of my favorites was that I got to learn outside of the classroom in a more formal setting from another Puget Sound student. So that was super cool. The culture of Puget Sound is really, really cool because I think people are involved in so many different things here and are really curious learners. So I think a lot of, or what I've heard from other experiences of college, other colleges around the nation, it's like, oh, you joined this one thing and that defines your college experience and you're really into it.

(08:18):
I think here because it's kind of a smaller campus and people are supernaturally curious and friendly and inviting you to tons of different things, you end up with really interesting students who are varsity athletes, but are also in the knitting club and also dance in our repertory dance group. So similarly earlier to how I was talking about how I never would have known, I would've been involved in so many things, the culture of our campus is just so supportive to putting yourself out there and trying something new that I think it really fosters this environment where students are super engaged and involved in so many different things and just creates a really supportive and engaged community.

(09:09):
So last semester I got to study abroad in Copenhagen through DIS, which is a study abroad program in Scandinavia. It was a really cool program. I got to take really interesting classes. I took one on Women in Leadership in Scandinavia, which was super cool. I also took one in sports economics, so I got to go to a ton of different sports games around Europe, which was just the coolest thing ever. And then I also took one on the history of humor, which was really cool. I got to learn a lot about the history of obviously humor, but more broadly censorship, and tons of interesting topics around that. So yeah, it was a cool experience. I took a lot of classes that were a little bit outside my comfort zone, but that's kind of what going abroad is all about. I got to travel to 10 different countries, which was really cool. And a lot of my friends were also studying abroad, not through the same program, but we all chose different programs, but a lot of 'em were in Europe. And so then we got to actually meet up and show each other kind of what we had learned on our little breaks, which was super fun.

Narrator (10:31):
Greater, We Ascend is a production of the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. This episode was produced by John Moe. Our theme music is by Skylar Hedblom, Puget Sound Class of 2025. Learn more at pugetsound.edu/greater.