Academic Excellence

Transcript

Now we’re gonna hear from Ishi a chemical engineering and finance double major who has used her time at UT to really get to know herself and her career interest while taking some risks along the way. I can’t wait to hear about your journey Ishi. Please take it away.

Thanks Alex and hey y’all. For years, I’ve wanted to pursue affordable healthcare to improve people’s lives. But when it came to picking a major, nothing I could think of fit. So, knowing UT had great academic options, I chose to enroll here, undeclared. While exploring majors, I made a pivotal decision. I joined UT Senate of College Councils, which is UT’s legislative body in handling all academic affairs. And here I represented all undeclared students. At Senate, two incredible things happened. First, I met Longhorns from almost every academic major you could imagine.

For context, UT has about 170 fields of study across 18 colleges and schools. So, meeting these people opened my eyes to the possibilities and I decided to double major in chemical engineering and finance. This way I learned about affordable healthcare strategy from two very unique perspectives. My fellow Senate representatives also inspired me to take random interesting classes like interpersonal communication and Roman archeology. Second, Senate showed me that despite our different majors, UT students have a lot in common and share a lot of the same academic struggles.

This understanding drove me to address internal transfer, which is the process through which most UT students changed their majors. I wrote Senate legislation to restructure and improve internal transfer. And after working with UT administration for two years, the new process became official. All students hoping to change their majors will benefit from this process. But here’s the thing, if I didn’t come to UT, I may never have found the perfect majors or pursued student advocacy. That just goes to show you how UT pushes you to explore. So if you are unsure of what to pursue in life, don’t worry. UT is the place to figure out who you are. I’ll always be grateful to UT for showing me who I am. Back to you Alex and hook’em.

Great job Ishi. Another way to explore your career interests at UT is through the many experiential learning opportunities they offer where students get hands on experience in their desired fields. It’s a great way to take what you’re studying in the classroom and apply it to the real world scenarios. Which can give you the confidence that you’re on the right track. Thanks again Ishi.