• I have volunteered at Heirlooms for Hospice for four years. There, I maintained clean, neat, and operational facilities to serve program needs. while also using strong interpersonal communication skills to convey information to customers and others. It was important to me to represent the organization positively and professionally while providing the community with much-needed services.

• I have also worked as a waitress at a local Japanese restaurant implementing great customer service stills and greeting customers with kindness. 

Final Reflective Essay

Promo Video

COS Presentation

Q7: What degree did you get for this job?

A7: I had a criminal justice degree, bachelor's. 

Q8: Would you suggest somebody else like me get that same degree or get a different degree?

A8: I would. Honestly, if I could do it over again, I would probably go back and do a psychology degree. 

Q9: Why is that? 

A9: Because we work with people and it's important to know and understand how people work and kind of how they think and how they tick. The criminal justice degree, I don't feel like it really did much for me. Other than that I met a qualification. I've learned a lot of stuff, pretty much everything on the job. I remember very little from college. As far as what I learned in the classroom, I don't feel like it prepared me very well for this job other than it just got me in the door. 

Q10: And so besides your education, then what do you think makes you successful?

A10: Besides my education, I just think my willingness to learn, my willingness to be coachable. My ability to be resourceful. Again, that collaboration piece is huge because we work with multiple community partners and you have to, you have to have people that are willing to work with you to get, you know, anywhere in, in this kind of job. It's easy to check boxes, but if you really want to change things. Help change people or help them change themselves. You have to get a little bit more creative, which means you gotta work with other people.

Q12: Did you ever work part time, like as a teenager? Did you have any jobs before this? 

A12: Yes. 

Q13: What were those jobs?

A13: I worked at the Kicks radio station, Cherry Creek Radio, I worked there for a little bit. I ran the boards there for Sunday morning services and sports, stuff like that. I worked for the rec district. I was like a referee and a scorekeeper for a long time. I worked at Murdoch's. I worked at Wendy's for a long time where I met my husband's.That's where we had our first date. When I moved out of here and I was in college, I was a server at Johnny Carino's which was an Italian restaurant that is no longer there anymore, so I feel super old. I worked there and then when I went to Colorado Springs, where I actually volunteered, I worked at a dog grooming dog wash place, which I loved. Those were my jobs. 

Q14: Did you ever learn any specific skills from there that helped you with this job? 

A14: I think just working with people. I've always been pretty compassionate and I've always had a kind of a love for animals, and then that's filtered into love for people. I think if you're in this job and you wanna last, you have to have that love for people, otherwise it's gonna burn you out. But on the flip side of that, that has kind of been something I've really had to work on too, is I can't let my love for people get in the way too much and it burns me out and I care too much. So I've had to really figure out how to balance all of that. And that's been probably my biggest struggle over the years.

Q16: Can you give me one piece of career advice that you thought would help somebody else? What would it be? 

A16: It's okay to have more than one in order to figure out what you really want to do. Make sure above all else, you take care of yourself and you keep that work life balance. Because at the end of the day, this is just a job where we're all expendable. So making sure you, you know, don't become a workaholic and keep that balance was super important because that was something that was not ever told to me and that was not ever anything that I was trained on. And if you get into a field like this, especially, make sure and understand that, the things that you read and see and do and hear will traumatize you vicariously. So just take care of yourself.