William Jewell College seniors Grant Janssen, physics and ACT-In major and mathematics minor and Samantha Cobb, physics major, are graduating this spring and hope to take what they have learned at Jewell on to graduate school in order to pursue professional engineering careers.

Janssen originally was on the three-two plan in which he planned to attend Jewell for three years then go on to get an engineering degree at another institution. However, he decided to stay at Jewell for an extra year.

“A turning point for me was when I decided to stay for four years instead of moving on in three. After that I started to get a lot more involved and it started to change my whole experience at Jewell,” said Janssen.

He is heavily involved with his fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, the Pryor Leadership Program and the golf team. Janssen also holds positions as the treasurer of Mortar Board and the president of Order of Omega.

On graduating, Janssen said he will miss the Jewell community and the physics department.

“The physics faculty is really supportive. They are always honest with their opinions which is great because that helped me to shape my decision for graduate school,” said Janssen.

Janssen got accepted into the engineering program at Washington University in St. Louis, but the school does not have a program in sustainable engineering, his specialty of interest.

During his time at Jewell, Janssen had an internship as a project manager in solar energy, which led him to become passionate about renewable energy.

“What I really want to do is get a job in that sector and get some experience then see where that goes and if that leads to graduate school somewhere else that has sustainable engineering that would be my plan,” said Janssen.

Some graduate schools Janssen is looking into that offer his specialty are the University of California, Berkley, The University of Michigan and Stanford University.

For the future, Janssen aspires for a masters of business administration, attend engineering graduate school, become a professional engineer (PE) and start his own company if he sees the niche.

“There isn’t a whole lot of solar engineering opportunities in Kansas City; they are mainly in the Southwest, but I would like to see it move here and be a part of the shift,” said Janssen.

Cobb will be attending Washington University in St. Louis as well. She is leaning towards the three year program in which she will earn a masters and bachelors degree in chemical engineering.

Cobb chose Washington University because of the good reputation they have for graduating chemical engineers, it is close to home and Dr. Baker, physics faculty, also attended the school and has high recommendations for their programs.

Cobb considers the physics department to be a family and enjoys how the physics professors genuinely care for their students.

“The physics faculty even get to know the students’ lives, and through that they can find internships and jobs that will interest individual students,” said Cobb.

Cobb had a research internship with the Pilsbury Scholars. In the program, Cobb completed an aquaponics system and went to Haiti to install solar panels.

“I want to stay on the environmental side of chemical engineering, but I haven’t decided if I want to be in the office or out in the field working. I am hoping that through summer internships I can get an idea of exactly what I want to do,” said Cobb.

During her four years at Jewell, Cobb has been president of her sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha, and currently holds positions as secretary of Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics national honors society, and president of Kappa Mu Epsilon, the mathematics national honors society.

Photos by Chandler Eaton. A previous version of this article was published. 

Ahart applied to four total medical schools across the country. These included: Creighton University, Saint Louis University, University of Iowa and KU. She was accepted in three and was placed on the alternate list for the University of Iowa. Her ultimate choice to attend KU was a combination of factors. Being a Kansas City native, Ahart will be able to accept in-state tuition costs while maintaining a close proximity to her family and friends.

“I kind of knew I always wanted to apply there because I grew up near it, I’ve always lived in Kansas City. And I knew they had the best hospital in the state, so I just thought it was the perfect choice,” Ahart said.

The opportunity to go to medical school presented itself when Ahart was still in high school. After volunteering for Kansas City Hospice House, Ahart realized that she had a passion for medicine, particularly for the healing aspect of the discipline. She found she was very influenced by the way that illness affected family members and friends alike. Although her volunteer work consisted mainly of delivering meals, Ahart enjoyed the conversations she had with the patients the most.

Ahart’s volunteer work, she stated, definitely helped her with her medical school applications.

“One thing that schools really look for is sustained commitment to some sort of volunteer service or involvement in something medicine-like or just service-like really. So, the fact that I started volunteering for Hospice in high school helped a lot. They could see that I was committed to this place,” Ahart said.

Completing a primary application was the first step for Ahart in applying to schools. This primary application is universal between medical schools, so it is accepted across all institutions. The schools then reviewed her primary application and sent her a secondary application if they were interested in accepting her as a student. This second application was geared more towards why she wanted to attend KU. Following the secondary application, Ahart was asked to come for an interview with current faculty. She had one interview with one faculty member, and a second interview with two doctors at the KU Medical Center, located near campus. It was after that that Ahart received her acceptance into the program at the end of March.

Throughout her process of applying to medical school, friends, family and faculty at Jewell supported Ahart. Her parents helped to finance the application process, traveling for interviews and tours of schools. The pre-medicine advisor, Dr. Amy Kerzmann, offered Ahart support as she became closer to the interview stage of her applications.

“Dr. Kerzmann, our pre-med advisor, was also super helpful because she would do mock-interviews with me or read all of my statements that I sent off to med school,” Ahart said.

Ahart will continue living in Kansas City while attending school and looks forward to remaining close to her friends and family within the city. She will be spending the next two years attending classes at KU. The following two years she will do rotations through different areas of the Hospital. From there, she will have to decide whether or not she wants to specialize in a particular area of medicine, which then determines the length of her residency. Ahart’s ultimate goal is to work at one of the local Kansas City hospitals.

Baker explained the audition process as “dual-step.” First, a student must apply and be accepted to the university itself, and then he or she may apply to the music department. Baker said this supplemental application was the difficult part, due to the varying requirements among schools. What every school did require was a formal video submission of Baker, and her accompanist, performing about 20 minutes of music.

“It’s super hard, because you can’t edit your recording, so they have to be nearly perfect in one take,” said Baker.

The specific requirements for the repertoire sung in these videos varied among schools, but in general, Baker said that within 20 minutes of singing, her music had to represent four languages, three musical eras and specific types of song requirements, meaning arts songs and arias.

After Baker submitted her videos, she was accepted to five schools for live auditions, which consisted of 15 minutes of singing. This acted as an audition both for the school and for scholarships.

“You get no feedback about any of the music. You just either get accepted or declined. It’s pretty cutthroat,” said Baker.

Baker has not decided which school she will attend next year but has until April 15th to do so. She knows she will be continuing her study of vocal performance and emphasizing in opera studies. Baker says she plans audition for professional opera companies after receiving her graduate degree.

“My future goals don’t involve settling down; in fact, just the opposite. My dream is to travel the world singing opera,” said Baker.

The process for acceptance into the Peace Corps is a long and strenuous one. Jessie began working on her application in August. It is necessary to be very knowledgeable on the Peace Corps and the country in which you will work in order to create a legitimate application. After about five months of working on it, Grosshart submitted her application in December and waited until she heard back. Grosshart interviewed for a position in early February. And then, one day in late February, she was sitting in the dining hall and received a phone call from a Peace Corps representative, informing her that she had been accepted.

Jessie tells me that this was the best phone call of her life. Growing up, she knew she wanted to work overseas.

“I knew that I wanted to do some sort of service abroad. When I was little I thought that would be through missionary work but as I’ve gotten older I’ve kind of realized there are some problems inherent in some kinds of missionary work,” said Grosshart.

She described missionary work as operating on an “us and them dichotomy” which she dislikes. The Peace Corps, however, has a very different approach.

“Peace Corps really fights against that. It’s based on a cultural exchange,” said Grosshart.

She admires this and it was important to her in making the decision to pursue a career in the Peace Corps.

“You are helping in something that is needed and has been asked for as opposed to a need that you see yourself,” said Grosshart.

Grosshart is not yet sure what town she will be living in but she does know that she will be teaching English to kids who live in whatever village she is assigned to in South Africa.

Two aspects of the Peace Corps and its objectives are to spread “American goodwill” and to provide a “cultural exchange.”

Spending 27 months in South Africa, Jessie hopes to accomplish more than just teaching kids English.

“I really want to get that understanding of the culture there and I want to be able to provide that understanding to the people around me [especially those in America],” she said.

Grosshart has a desire to show South Africans the better nature of the United States as far as its willingness to help others, but she also hopes to show them a personal goodwill that transcends nationality. She ultimately hopes to be able to spread a mutual understanding and help those in her life to embrace differences.

Although the application process took a while, the process from here starts picking up. She has already begun to prepare herself for the experience, doing some online training and web seminars. She will ship out on July 5 and begin a three month training period. After this, she will begin working. Grosshart will be living with a family in South Africa and will be fully immersed in the culture. She will soon embark on her new career, doing what she has always wanted to do.

After her 27 months of service is up, Grosshart says she plans to either apply to graduate school or renew her service in the Peace Corps.