Why Waldorf

“What is your major, again? Sorry, I cannot keep up.” This is the question my friends kept asking me during my freshman year at Waldorf University. My friends certainly had a good reason to ask as I was indecisive of what I wanted to do with my college education, so I ended up with a bunch of I-20 forms with different majors listed on them, ranging from psychology to biology, from business to communications.

I discovered Waldorf—the place I feel like I belong through an acquaintance who enrolled here a year before I did. Before coming to Waldorf and during my freshman year, I had a wide range of interests, and I was unable to commit to one potential field of study. To this day, I am grateful that Waldorf allowed me to be flexible and try out my options to find my own path. What attracted me to Waldorf University was primarily the availability of the Pillars Scholarship, because it would remove a huge financial burden from my parents’ shoulders; however, as I was researching other college options, the second aspect I looked at was the community and the campus in general. The Forest City community and location of the campus helped determine that Waldorf was the university I wanted to be a student at.

I enjoy the small friendly community because it reminds me of the town that I am from, Dashoguz, located in the northern part of Turkmenistan in the Central Asia region. I truly appreciate the Forest City weather that everyone complains about, because it reminds of Forks, Seattle from my favorite book franchise: The Twilight Saga.

I work with the Office of Admissions as a Campus Ambassador assisting during Warrior Orientation and Registration events (WOAR) and give tours to perspective students and their families. During orientation and check-in events I am also an Orientation Leader. I enjoy my work with Campus Ministry as a Promotions Coordinator to create marketing collateral in print and digital formats. I write the monthly LikeFire ministry newsletter as well. I work as an Essay Tutor in the Student Writing Center and help students edit/format their academic papers with relevant MLA/APA/AP formats.

I belong to the following clubs here on campus: Business Club, World Student Association (WSA), Amnesty International, Honors College, “The Torch” Magazine Design Team (starting Fall 2021), Pillars Program, and the “Waldorf Literary Review” annual magazine (previous prose editor and incoming layout designer starting Fall 2021). I am grateful for the many opportunities to get involved on the Waldorf campus. It has taught me the value of reaching out to the right people at the right time. Furthermore, I love how I can build close relationships with the faculty and staff, where they refer to me by my name although we may have never officially met. Coming to the United States is a huge culture shock on its own to international students like me and attending a big university that can often lack personalized attention would be a double strike of culture shock for me. Therefore, being a student at Waldorf made it easier to transition from high school to a college setting on my journey towards my potential career.

Hopefully, now that I have finally decided to graduate with a BA Degree in Business and Communications, I will be able to follow my interest and find my niche to set up the career life that I want. My goal is to own my own marketing agency one day and help small businesses connect with their target audience. I believe that in my two years left at Waldorf, I will be able to learn the skills that will help me do just that. By allowing me to combine the theoretical/analytical knowledge from the business professors and practical/technical skills from communications instructors into a double-major program, Waldorf helped me to increase my chances of academic excellence. Therefore, as I wrote in a scholarship essay about how I aspire to become a philanthropist, I hope to have the financial freedom to create my own funding program to help students from different backgrounds. As one of the core values of the University that I resonate closely with, serving the community is the path I wish to be on once I graduate. After all, helping the entities that contributed to shaping me as a person is a core value for me.