What is your dream job?

When it comes to jobs, I have done a wide variety of them and liked most of them. To pick a dream job feels like trying to pick one song to listen to for a decade or, harder still, a lifetime. I am an explorer in my heart, and any true explorer knows that exploration is everywhere. That is why journalism or communications would allow me to lean into that curiosity that drives my every waking moment. While I don’t know that it would be a forever job, a bucket list job of mine is working for National Geographic.

Where does the Clipper fit into your long-term goals?

I didn’t know myself or the world well enough in my first few attempts at higher education. I hadn’t learned the art of networking or how to take advantage of each school’s many offerings. Now that I am older and wiser, The Clipper offers an array of benefits. It allows me to be a part of a creative community, which I have learned adds joy to my life. It helps close the gap between me and a job in my desired profession by allowing me to hone my craft, and as a cherry on top, I get to know you, the students, and the staff.

Which historical or fictitious figure do you most identify with?

Isabelle Eberhardt was a lesser-known female explorer, journalist and poet from the late 1800s. She dressed as a man so that she would have access to areas of the world that she wouldn’t as a woman. She was unafraid to transform herself to gain access to the military, travel unchaperoned and live as fully as herself in her ways as possible for the time. I was this way before my time as a wife and as a mom. I traveled to places by myself in ways that many saw as being dangerous and even inappropriate. I bought one-way tickets to foreign countries with no known associates or knowledge of the language and just flung myself into the world to discover, write and take pictures. It wasn’t until I met my husband at an Alaskan salmon cannery that I understood I could find adventure in myself and at home.