Student transfers to Kent State to find her purpose
Kent State University freshman Julia Morris feels a special kind of fulfillment from taking care of her two snakes, two lovebirds and three fish. But she yearns to turn her lifelong love of animals into a vocation.
Last fall, Ms. Morris, 19, moved closer to her life’s purpose when she transferred to Kent State from Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) to major in zoology. She had been attending Tri-C western in Parma for two semesters, studying to be a veterinarian technician and saving money, while she decided upon a major.
“Hopefully, I will work at a zoo with the reptiles and fish,” Ms. Morris says. “At some point, I may want to open a pet store and breed animals.”
During childhood, she had a variety of pets, such as rabbits and fish, but now she is beginning to stretch her experience into the world of reptiles.
“I’m shy around people, but with my animals, I’m completely different,” Ms. Morris says. “I love having something dependent on me” and giving the animals “the life that they deserve.”
Kent State’s Department of Biological Sciences, with its program in zoology, happens to be the perfect choice for her to pursue future goals.
She had visited Kent State many times when her older sister, a 2015 alumna, was a student here. That’s when she became familiar with the campus.
Ms. Morris also knew that if she wanted to major in zoology, none of the other colleges that she considered attending were close to her hometown of Brunswick.
For her Kent State wasn’t too big, but big enough. “I liked that. It was close to home, but far enough away from home and safe, compared to Akron, which also offers a zoology program.” She felt that Kent State offered her many options. “I could do whatever I wanted to do. I would have been limited at other colleges.”
Ms. Morris praises the transfer process as “really easy.” She says that if admissions had offered the option for her to schedule her classes without spending the night on campus during a visit, that would have been fine with her.
“The experience can be tailored to what each person needs,” she adds.
Now Ms. Morris is taking prerequisites in preparation for the Zoology Program. Buoyed by the many student success stories that she has heard about, she has high hopes that one day her story will number among those successes.
“There is no other way I could have done anything else. This is the only thing I will be happy doing,” Ms. Morris says. “If you could have asked the five-year-old me what I would want to do, I would have said, ‘work with animals.’”