Qualifying inbound leads for Animal science

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[Music] My name is Jason Szumski. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I came in as an Aerospace Engineering major within the College of Engineering, but after a little bit I decided that I wanted to have more human-animal interaction. And so I decided to move away from the engineering side. I can almost visualize the exact day that I came in here looking for something new. And so they didn't tell me exactly what I should do. They told me what do you want to do? And they're like well let's get to work then. Let's try this, let's try this, let's try this, and then you come back and report what you liked and then we'll continue going down that path. And so I tried a couple different things, and I found out that veterinary medicine is definitely the route that I wanted to go. My favorite part of working here and advising and teaching is actually student development. I love being able to help them say okay, so now we know we don't like this. We do like this, so I think you should go talk to this professor or I think you should go talk to that faculty member to really help develop those skills and who they are. Because ultimately that's what our goal is right, is for them to find where they fit in this giant world of animal sciences. I actually applied to a lot of schools. I applied to like UC Davis and Berkeley and I did get into those schools, but I think the program here just stood out to me the most. All the professors and all the people were really welcoming, so I just felt more at home. The advisors here are just absolutely amazing. And the professors here you can go into their office whenever you want, and they are like available to talk about anything. Whether that be related to the topic that they talk about in class or if that's just some concerns that you have with your life and like the career path that you're going down. Our sense of community is definitely something really special. I just love that we promote a family type atmosphere, but we also live it. It's not just something that we are excited about, it's something that we truly are passionate about. It's helping the students to find their career. Having students get lots of different experiences not just different laboratories, but in different disciplines, working with different animal species, working in immunology, nutrition, and behavior all the different areas that you can. It's getting all those different experiences. Animal Science does a really good job with giving you hands-on experience with the animals. Through all of that knowledge, that they give you, you start to understand you know I don't have to work with companion animals I can branch out and work with these different animals. If I was on my own going through the program I would have been like dogs and cats that's all I want to go to, but because of this curriculum and the program here that forces you to step outside your boundaries, and now I love cows. One of the reasons why I love Illinois is the ability to have all those disciplines in one place. This is a world-renowned institution where we can actually have lots of open doors and get lots of experiences. I'm actually really proud of myself and where I've come from. ACES does such a good job at giving you opportunities to have scholarships because if I didn't have those scholarships I wouldn't be able to go to this school. My parents aren't able to financially support me. Being a student in the Department of Animal Sciences gives you a lot of opportunity to go anywhere. I honestly just want to say thank you to the College of ACES. It almost like brings me to tears because like how I was freshman year to who I am now like they give you everything that you need to go out into the world. I'm really proud of what I'm doing and where I'm going. I would not be in the spot that I'm in right now without guidance from the College. We're just as excited about their future as they are about their future. Animal Sciences has so much breadth and so much opportunity for you to do so many different things. [Music]