In the Jungle; Heather Burger

Thank you for joining us for In The Jungle, where you stay connected to the current students at Pittsburgh State University. Now, here's your host, Howard Smith. Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grill as a Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we are joined by Heather Birder. Hi, Heather. Hello. We're glad to have you here today. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about where you're from and how you ended up at Pitt State. I'm from Argonia, Kansas, which is a tiny town outside of which talk about 45 minutes. I grew up farming, and then parents kind of started doing other jobs, and yeah, I started off at a community college. Uh-huh. Which one did you go to? I went to Butler County in El Dorado, and then I transferred here because flat tuition looks pretty appealing to the eye when you're looking for colleges, and my brother also went here. Okay. And he just enjoyed the heck out of it, so I thought I'd try it out, and I've loved it ever since. That's fantastic. So, what are you majoring in? Business management and marketing with a minor in dance.

Okay. Now, that's an interesting combination. Now, why that combination? Did you start out and something else and then move to management and marketing? Yes. In my previous college, I started as a, well, I got my liberal arts degree, but I thought I was going to be going into MassCom, so I took a lot of broadcasting radio and TV classes, but I don't know. I just, I mean, I enjoyed it a lot. I just wasn't sure if that was exactly what I wanted to go into. But I wanted to do something a little more broad, which is why I decided on business, and I couldn't decide if I wanted to manage my marketing more, so I just did both, which is a good combination, because it just kind of works well together, and decided on the dance minor, because it's been a huge passion my entire life. And I would like to own my own studio one of these days. Well, good combination. To have the business background would definitely be beneficial in having my own studio. Well, that's good. To know how things run. That's a great plan. Thanks. That's super. It's successful, too, over in the business, college business, and you were awarded a significant scholarship, aren't you?

Mm-hmm. Tell us a little bit about that and how come you got it? I still ask myself that question, but through an act, there's several scholarships you can apply for, and I applied for all of them that I could, and this one in particular, it was the Jules and Gwen and App Scholarship, which is awarded $10,000, and you're the in-actes United States student ambassador for a year. And what's that until being a... Well, you... I haven't gotten too deep into it yet, because it's like just kind of just starting, but essentially you get a lot of access to trainings, like leadership trainings. So you get to travel with this? Hopefully. Through the scholarship so far, I have not, but we were, an act just was actually just at a career summit in Austin this past weekend that I got from, I just got back from last night. So that was awesome. It was great. Now, you... Dance is your minor. Yes. And it's got to be a passion or a high interest for you, I'm guessing. It's a huge passion.

Ah. When I was little, I started off in dance and gymnastics, but over time, my mom was like, okay, you need to choose one and just kind of go for it. I said, okay, I'll go for dance. And enjoyed it, kind of quit for a little bit, like when I was in middle school. Like still did some things here and there, but then in high school, tried out for a dance team, made it, kept going, did show choir, started doing choreography, which choreography has become my huge passion in dance. Like I love dancing everything, but choreography is like my strong point. And so I started choreographing for my high school dance, as well as my show choir. And then at my community college, I went on vocal scholarship, which entailed dance classes because I was in the show choir part, it was called Butler Ladies. And we were singing, dancing group. And I got to choreograph for them and it just was, yeah, so fun, I love it. That's one of the things about Pitt State, and I'm glad you brought that up, that's your minor, but you can, you literally have a lot of options here.

Did you find that to be the case? I mean, as far as, I mean, major in something, but you can also find an interest area that may fit with what you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. There's just, yeah, there's a lot you can do here. Now I know you're also involved in a group called GAL, you know, tell me about being a GAL. Oh goodness. Being a GAL is wonderful, the acronym is Gamma Alpha Lambda, and it's a Christian sorority on campus that was started two years ago, I believe, it's pretty new. We started at like, I think 15 girls and we've grown to like over 40, and it's just, it's so great. The girls are wonderful. Man, it's just a lot of community service that I get to put into, which is something that I really love, and it's just a lot of fun, especially with them being able to do it, like as a team is just, it's awesome. So that's part of campus Christians, or are you involved in that as well? Oh, it's, they're separate, but yes, I'm also involved in campus Christians. Okay, there, okay. What are some of the things that you do with campus Christians? I lead worship some nights.

We all kind of like tape turns, there's several of us that help lead worship, or we'll play an instrument of some sort for backup. What are you playing? I had to play guitar, keyboard, or drums, it just kind of depends on what's in it. I tell them that I gotta tell you, I mean, you sing, you dance, and you've got a business mind here. So putting that dance studio together seems like just the right fit for you. Yeah. So if you were to do something like that, do you have any, have you thought through maybe where you want to go with that? Oh my gosh. There's so many avenues. The dance class that I'm taking right now, it's, it's called technology for dance. One of our newer teachers, Mrs. Davenport teaches it, and she's been kind of really kind of a good like mentor in that area because she's got this huge background in dance, like Broadway, Radio City, and she's just phenomenal. And she has like a lot of insight on it because a lot of her friends own dance studios now. And some of them, while they teach dance in their studio, they'll have like separate rooms for either like an instrumental lesson or a vocal lesson, and it's like, wow, I can

integrate all of this stuff into, yeah. So you want to go back to the witch diary, you want to, you opened other areas? I'm definitely open to other areas, but I mean, which style will be a good starting point since I'm from there? That's a, that's a great idea. I got, I got a question for you academically, what's been your toughest class so far? Quantitative decision making, I can say that without hesitation. Are you in that right now? I was. Okay. I previously learned that another teacher will be teaching it next semester, and I was taking 22 credits this semester, so I was like, hmm, I can lay off one, because this is the first time I've ever dropped a class, and it was just a really hard decision. Well, you've got, you've got a balance at the past, I mean, I mean, to get there. So that's a wise decision. What advice would you give to a potential student that was considering Pitt State? What would you tell them as why they should consider Pitt State? What would you say to them? It's so homey, like the small classrooms is awesome, and the flat tuition rate is

great. Definitely something that you can take advantage of, and just the opportunities are great. You can mix any kind of major and minor, and I don't know, it's just easy to kind of work things together, and the staff is always super helpful in making decisions. And that proves why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining us in the jungle. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and Heather, you've been a delight today. Thanks for being on with us. Thank you so much, Howard. I appreciate it. Join us for in the jungle, Wednesday afternoons at 350, and Friday mornings at 850, here on K-R-B-S.