Last Friday, I met with a student exploring a fascinating combination: criminology, business, and theater. He had just received a commercial audition invite in Kansas City and was waiting to hear back from Disney. He wanted to understand how he could weave these seemingly different interests together to serve his bigger life goals.
Our conversation dove deep into identity and purpose. We explored why he’d shifted from pre-med to fields rooted in psychology, sociology, and communication. We discussed how business and public policy shape our daily experiences, and why giving back matters so much to him.
We discussed how theater serves as a unique laboratory to experiment with and examine personal confidence—exploring how it influences performance, shapes peer dynamics, builds empathy, and enhances communication. The rehearsal room becomes a space where skills develop that transfer everywhere: active listening, navigating status shifts, taking different perspectives, and receiving clear feedback. These same skills show up in classrooms, on teams, and in community work.
This conversation reminded me of a renewed approach of helping students articulate their North Star—that underlying purpose connecting the fields of their choices—becomes the key to understanding how their chosen fields of study can work together. Starting with identity and purpose, then mapping interests and trends to potential majors, minors, and certificates, creates clearer pathways. Leveraging Your Drury Fusion’s real-world project components to test these connections and building experience through creative work, research, service, and internship to create momentum. Throughout this process, we cultivate the habit of reflecting on small wins and setbacks to build readiness for what’s ahead.
“And” wins when disciplines converge on purpose.
Note: The North Star itself shifts as we gain new vantage points—requiring continuous recalibration as we move forward, just like navigators adjusting course based on changing positions and clearer views of the horizon.
#admission #advising #YourDruryFusion #IdentityAndPurpose #DruryUniversity #DruryInternational #goPanthers
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