BYU graduates offer advice to students

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Catherine Craig wishes she would have gone on a study abroad while she was at BYU. Jenny Foote regrets the fact that she didn’t take advantage of more service opportunities.

Dehn Craig thinks he would be more well-rounded if he would have taken more classes that he enjoyed about various topics that didn’t necessarily count towards his major.

Alex Hancock wishes he would have gotten involved with more job-related clubs on campus, and Brock Luker would have majored in computer science if he could do it over again.

Former BYU students agree they may have missed out on opportunities and now they’re offering their advice.

Dehn Craig, 28, is now a master’s student at BYU. He graduated in manufacturing engineering in 2010 and will receive his masters degree in April 2013.

Craig reminisces about his undergraduate days and wishes he would have taken more classes that he was interested in.

“I wish that I took credits that had nothing to do with my major,” Craig said.

Looking back, he believes doing that would have given him a wider range of knowledge about various subjects.

Some of his favorite classes included an anatomy class and a film studies class. Neither one of them were required for his engineering degree, but he is extremely grateful that he took those classes. He now realizes he should have taken more classes like those.

Craig’s wife, Catherine Craig, 28, is a stay-at-home mother of three, and graduated in elementary education in 2007.

Catherine Craig loved her experience at BYU, and one of her favorite memories during her undergraduate years was going to the BYU sporting events.

Craig mentioned she was very happy that she always got an All sports pass because the games helped her to feel involved at the university.

“It was a good break, and it was fun to get out with friends,” Craig said.

As much as she enjoyed her undergraduate years, as she looks back, one thing she feels she missed out on was a study abroad experience.

“It would have been fun to go to Europe for a semester and get credit,” Craig said.

Although she is not working outside the home, her degree has helped her immensely with raising her three children.

Jenny Foote, 22, graduated from BYU with a degree in American studies in April 2012, and she is now a law student across the street at the J. Rueben Clark Law School.

Foote said one of her favorite things about attending BYU is the devotionals. When she thinks of her undergraduate days, she is thankful that she attended the devotionals, and she still goes to them while in law school.

One of her biggest regrets was not taking advantage of the many opportunities to serve.

“There’s so many organizations, clubs and opportunities to reach out and serve others,” Foote said.

Now that she doesn’t have as much spare time, she wishes she would have served others more through the opportunities BYU provides while finishing her undergraduate degree.

Alex Hancock, 25, now working as a financial planner in Salt Lake City, graduated form the Marriott School with a finance emphasis in August 2011.

In the field of work he’s currently in, he explained that if he would have been more involved with clubs and alumni groups, it would help him greatly today.

“I knew what they were but never took the time to be a part of them,” Hancock said.

He explained that BYU graduates some of the best and the brightest, and those that graduate from BYU share a passion and pride in the school. Sharing that common ground can offer business opportunities and friendships, Hancock said.

However, he is extremely grateful for the experiences he had supporting the Cougars and attending athletic events.

He said that he quickly gained an understanding of the national presence BYU has academically and athletically. Getting involved with athletics helped him to gain an idea of what BYU really was about, he said.

Brock Luker, 26, graduated in April 2012 with a degree in American studies. Luker now runs RedKonnect, a social media advertising platform that he created while still in school.

“I wish I would have majored in computer science,” Luker said.

Luker said that with his current business, having a degree in computer science would greatly help him with the thinking and problem solving involved in entrepreneurship. He often has to outsource programming, and he could save a lot of time and money if he had the skills to do some of those tasks himself.

He said sometimes people don’t truly understand what a computer science degree has to offer.

“It has a bad connotation, and it really shouldn’t,” Luker said.

However, he cites one of the best decisions he ever made during his four years at BYU as choosing to play baseball for BYU.

“It set me up on a path of discipline . . and I made such great friends,” Luker said.

With mistakes come lessons learned. Many different BYU graduates are out in the workforce, and their bits of advice could make all the difference. Sometimes looking back in the rearview mirror can give even greater visibility and perspective than just looking forward.

 

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