Adventure

When looking back at her high school experience, Zakiya Johnson can only describe it as being “okay.” She says that being one of the only Black women in her grade made it hard to feel comfortable and connected with the peers around her.

That is why she was excited for a change of pace and scenery when considering college. Johnson is a junior at Iowa State majoring in psychology and she chose this institution because she was offered the George Washington Carver (GWC) scholarship.

 She also liked how strong the study abroad programs were at Iowa State.

Ashley Brent chose to attend Iowa State due to the combination of majors that she wanted to take and as well as the courses that were going to be offered to her. 

Brent attended a high school in the capital city of Missouri where she enjoyed her school experience because of her love for academics and the extracurricular activity of band. She expressed how the band helped balance the stress that came with the school. 

Brent is currently a junior majoring in environmental science and community regional planning. 

When Destiny Payne was deciding what school, she wanted to attend after her undergraduate program, she wanted to pick an institution that would give her a different experience than her last institution. She wanted to go to a bigger institution that also had a well-established student affairs program.

So, when she found out that she could enroll in a student affairs program that had a social justice focus, she was immediately attracted to Iowa State.

As a first-generation college student, my time here at college has not always been sunshine and rainbows. Upon arriving, I was faced with a few difficult circumstances such as:

The last place I expected myself to end up is in the crater of an active volcano, having my skin burned with sulfur dioxide emissions, a backpack heavy with scientific instruments on my back, and the biggest smile ever on my face. Never, ever, up until last summer, did I think I was capable of doing something so scary and so monumental. Hiking up that volcano every day to collect soil gas samples in order to help predict the next eruption was one of the greatest experiences of my life. The greatest part of it all, though, was the moment I stood at the summit of Mt.

“Isn’t the GRE just another SAT?”