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The purpose of this podcast is to give information about topics such as our department’s initiatives, routes in traditional higher education, trade and tech schools, apprenticeships, certifications, different avenues to enter the workforce directly and much more.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the first ever episode of the Donuts with DHEWDs podcast brought to you by the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development. The mission of our department
Cade:is to empower Missourians with the skills and education needed for success. My name is Cade Tremain, and I'm here today with my colleague, Alison Notter, to bring you relevant information each month about the world of higher education and the options that you have as you prepare to enter or reenter the workforce. We know that making big decisions like what to do after high school or what career to pursue is a major and often times difficult decision, but don't worry because we're here to help you guys every step of the way.
Alison:Hi. I'm Alison Notter, and I am a said colleague. The purpose of this podcast is to, give you tips and tricks, but also resources because I feel and we feel that there is, like, a lot of resources that the state of Missouri provides to its citizens that they just don't know about. And so part of the reason for this podcast is to continually push those resources out and make sure that people have access to them. So this, podcast has been in the works for about nine, ten months
Alison:A little while before we when we pitched it. So, we're really excited to be here and have really nice microphones and, get started and jump right in.
Cade:Absolutely. Absolutely. And we hope that you enjoy Donuts with DHEWDs. We've got big plans to talk about everything from college application process to overall thriving in school, skill building workshops, and everything that the state provides, tips for writing the perfect resume, financial literacy, entering workforce, really anything that you could think of. We feel like we'll be able to give great insight into all these topics considering these are all things that we have experienced personally and we have great knowledge in.
Cade:And if not, then we'll be bringing a guest on here that does. And speaking of guests, today we've got a great lineup of folks that are super excited to share what they've learned and experienced with you. So this episode, you're going to hear from two of our coworkers, our colleagues. First one being Gracie Hamrick and LeAnn Powell as our second. And we'll keep things a little bit light today, and we'll discuss some of our favorite memories in college.
Alison:First things first, very important question. Favorite donut? What is it, Gracie?
Gracie:So where I grew up, there was a doughnut shop, and they had these blueberry doughnuts that had, like, a lemon glaze on them. Oh. And yeah. Delicious. It will forever be my favorite.
Alison:And, LeAnn, what about you?
LeAnn:For me, it's definitely just a plain old glazed doughnut. I think that, honestly, there's nothing better than just, like, the original.
Alison:For sure. Yeah. Old fashioned.
Cade:The best doughnut is a caramel long John.
Alison:I don't think I've ever had a Caramel long John.
Cade:That's insane to me.
Alison:I don't know what to tell you. I think my favorite, I really like an old fashioned, but I also really like a Boston cream. It's just very good. There's also this donut place right up on my parents' house that, just makes the best ones. So it's very good.
Alison:So, as Cade mentioned, the question, for this podcast is where why we went to college and what was
Gracie:your favorite memory that, happened while you were an undergrad? So I went to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. And one of my favorite memories in college was actually my first night, my freshman year. They put on this event in the quad, and pretty much everyone gathered to sing karaoke. And I had never sang karaoke before or ever wanted to sing karaoke before.
Gracie:And for some reason, I decided that night was gonna be my first night ever trying that. And I sang a Taylor Swift song with just some random stranger, and it was really fun.
Cade:As you do on your first night out of college. Yeah.
Alison:It was
Gracie:totally out of my comfort zone, but I think that it was really good for me to try something like that so early on because I feel like it set the tone for the rest of my semester. And I was able to step out of my comfort zone in other areas and just have fun.
Cade:What song was it?
Gracie:It was You Belong With Me.
Cade:Classic.
Cade:Did you and that new friend remain friends for the for the duration of
Alison:Yeah.
Gracie:Every time I saw him walking to class, he'd be like, hey. You know, you're the karaoke person, but I never asked
Gracie:his name. He never knew my name. We just kinda knew each other as, like, the karaoke person we met.
Cade:Just broke out in song and dance every time you every time you cross paths. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah.
Alison:And what was your major?
Gracie:So my major was business communications, and I minored in health and wellness. Yeah.
Cade:And I don't believe I mentioned this earlier, but, Gracie, you do the social media for our department. So you are our social media coordinator.
Alison:Yes. So
Cade:and then, LeAnn, we'll move on to you about your favorite memory in college. LeAnn is the director of communications over in DHEWD. What was your favorite memory in college, and where did you go? What did you study as well?
LeAnn:So I went to Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. It's where I grew up. And I always knew I wanted to go to college. That was never a question for me. It was just a question of what I wanted to do.
LeAnn:So I majored in communications with a specialization in print and web journalism, and I minored in Spanish and photography. And my favorite college memory so it's not like one particular memory. It's just kind of like a thing that was ongoing. I lived in the honor store while I was in school, and there were about 50 beds. So it was really small as far as, like, dorms go.
LeAnn:And we have this First Floor study room that was just, like, a fantastic place to hang out. I don't know if anyone ever actually studied in it the entire time I lived there, and I was there for, like, three and a half years.
LeAnn:And somehow, by some, I don't know, weird twist of fate, freshman year, everyone showed up with, like, all of their board games from home. I guess it was just because we were all bunch of nerds. So that that study room just became, like, the game room, and it was impossible to walk in or out of the dorm without seeing some sort of game going on. And it was always, like, super inviting. They'd be in the middle of the game, and they'll be like, hey.
LeAnn:Jump in for the next round. What game was the most often played? Oh goodness. So the most commonly played games, because I don't know if I could pick a single one,
Gracie:were
Alison:Top three. Smash Up.
LeAnn:We didn't play test this either, and either betrayal at House on the Hill or Werewolf.
Alison:I've played Betrayed at House on the Hill. It's pretty fun.
LeAnn:That is my favorite board game.
Cade:I've never heard of or played any of those games. That's fair enough. Like a Yahtzee monopoly. Sorry, you know, kinda guy.
LeAnn:They're all a bit more niche. I I very rarely meet people who are like, oh my gosh. I love those games. Like
Alison:My dorm's, game was, like, love letter, because it went really love letter. Yeah. It went really quickly, and you could play with up to six people. And so people would just, like, rotate in and out. We also played a lot of deck building games.
Alison:So our favorites were,
LeAnn:like, Lord of the Rings deck builder. I wish
Alison:I like deck builders. I really wish I did. But I truly am just very dumb, so I cannot build a deck. But, since I'm talking, I will I guess I will continue with the story. So I went to Truman State University.
Alison:I have a degree in sociology, and I have a minor in painting. And my favorite memory also happened my freshman year. And so context, Kirksville gets very cold, in the winter. So and there's a lot of snow that just gets dumped on, the city. So snow days were not really a thing.
Alison:The school knew how to handle it. They would pay they would salt and, like, shovel everything. So classes were very rarely canceled. Individual professors could cancel classes, but the university itself normally didn't. And one I think it was December or January.
Alison:It was, like, in the in the middle of winter, and we just got, like, three feet of snow and ice. And, we were all It's a dream. It's a dream. We were all waiting for, like, the email to come out that classes were canceled. A couple of us had gotten, like, professor emails because a lot of them commuted in.
Alison:But, we got the email at, like, 11:30 at night that was like, hey. The university is gonna be closed tomorrow. And so, like, you just hear the collective sigh across campus. But then literally, like, fifteen minutes later, our RAs emailed everybody on our floor and was like, hey. We're gonna meet on the quad for a snowball fight at midnight.
Alison:Be there at the square. And so we all the entire dorm that I was in, we all met out on the quad and just had a giant snowball fight. Very fun. It was very cold, and, also, some ice was, like, built into the snow. Oh.
Alison:So, you know, some bruises were had. But but Sure.
Alison:A true fight. But, yeah, it was a super fun time. And then the next day, we played, football on the ice, which also a bad idea. But you know when you're 19?
Cade:You bounce.
Alison:You bounce you bounce back. So, just bounce back up. But yeah. So that was my experience. And I went to college.
Alison:It was never really a question for me. I'm not a first generation college student, so, the expectation was already there. And, also, it was instilled to me at a young age, like, the social capital that you could gain, from a post secondary degree regardless of what that is. So Gotcha. Alright.
Alison:Cade, what's up?
Cade:So I am a first generation college student. I attended the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, and I was a political science major, and I my minor was in business administration. So, I liked UCM quite a bit. Like I said, I was a first generation, so everything was very new to me. The the town that I'm from, the town population was about pretty comparable to the university population.
Cade:It's a little bit of a culture shock even though UCM isn't too big, but it was definitely a new a new experience to me nonetheless. So, my first or I guess my my best memory, I would say, at UCM was during finals week right before, I guess, leading leading up to finals time. I was a part of SGA at UCM, and SGA stands for Student Government Association. Thank you. I did
LeAnn:not know
Alison:what that meant.
LeAnn:Thank you. Thank you.
Cade:Student Government Association. And every year, student government would decorate the rec center on campus for just kind of the holiday season, and that was fun. That was kind of the first time I remember out of high school feeling like I had a solid group of friends that I could hang out with. And that was very nice for to for college to kinda facilitate that. Because I I think that's one of the perks that comes with college that a lot of people don't always realize or think of whenever they're on a college visit of of some sort.
Cade:So that was probably my favorite, I think.
Gracie:Oh. Yeah. There's a lot
Cade:of other good memories, but that's probably my my best one starting out.
Alison:Yeah. And like we said, we wanted to keep this, episode pretty light.
LeAnn:Can I actually interrupt you for a second? Please. Oh my god. So just because, we were kind of discussing, like, what Gracie and I do and, you know, our degrees and kind of how they have played into our careers. Like, do you wanna educate our audience on what the two of you do?
LeAnn:Because you have pretty cool jobs.
Alison:Oh, yeah. I guess we did not mention that
Cade:at all. We we do have
Gracie:the yeah.
Cade:I would maybe not the best jobs in the department, but Not really. Probably the best jobs
Alison:in the department.
Cade:Allison and I get the privilege of bouncing all around the state and visiting lots of different high schools, universities, any sort of educational setting that could occur. And hopefully, just making sure students of all ages and all walks of life, are able to access higher ed in any way that they can. That's kind of how I describe it, Allison. You wanna jump in?
Alison:The way I describe it to people who don't know what we do is, like, I support high school counselors in supporting their students. And so regardless of what students wanna do after high school, it's really important to for me, to know that they know their options. Right? Because we are the department of higher education and workforce development. So our goal is to help students figure it out regardless of where that is.
Alison:So we support them in two year, four year, and trade school, tech school, just making sure that they have all of their options and don't have to take out millions of dollars to do so. But, yeah, it's really fun. I have the Central Region Of Missouri, so I get to go back to Truman every so often, which is fun for me. So, see some old professors. Former professors, not old professors.
Alison:One, teacher always one of my high school teachers always would correct me when I would say, this is my old high school teacher. And she would be like, I'm a former high school teacher. Thank you so much. So My region of
Cade:the state is what we consider to be Southwest in the department. So that's kind of, anything Springfield area, Joplin area, Branson area, kind of those more heavily populated areas in Southwest Missouri, and a lot of other places around there. It's very, very rural in that area. Whenever I'm traveling a lot of times, the radio will cut out for a bit of time, but it's it's a blast. I love my I I think I have the best region, if not the best route of the department.
Cade:So And
Alison:then we also have five regions of Missouri. So we have Southwest, Central, the Kansas City sort of area, Saint Louis sort of area, and then we actually just added a new region, which is Northeast. So that's very exciting. So spreading the good word about higher education and whatever that means to students is basically our job. We also give presentations and, go to a lot of FAFSA frenzies, help people figure it out, field questions.
Alison:I just got that.
Cade:A lot of college fairs in the fall.
Alison:A lot of college fairs in the fall. So that's very exciting. It is very exciting. Kids are always suspicious. They're like, so how do you make money?
Alison:And I'm like, we're the state. We're just gonna provide resources. Yeah. They're like, what school is this? And I'm like, it's not.
Cade:Don't worry about it. What is Journey to College? What college is that?
Alison:But yeah. So like I mentioned, we just wanted to keep this sort of episode very light and bright because it is our first one, sort of getting our feet wet in terms of the whole situation. So if you are listening to this and you're like, oh, I wish we talked about x, y, and z, please let us know, and we will make sure to, get that on the roster. Our social media is Journey to College, usually on all of the platforms. So but it's journey number two, college.
Alison:So, jot that down. We are thinking about talking about job centers the next time we do our podcast. So what they are, where they are, and how they can support you in your journey. So, I'm Allison.
Cade:I'm Cade.
Alison:And this was Donuts with DHEWDs.