CALS Community Feature: Amanda Chung

Name: Amanda Chung (’12 animal ecology)

Title: Student Services Specialist, Iowa State University Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management (NREM)

Primary job duties: Recruiting and advising students studying animal ecology and forestry.

How did your education at Iowa State University help prepare you for your current role?
Having graduated from ISU with an animal ecology degree, I was especially prepared to be an advisor and recruiter for the NREM department. I was also fairly active on campus, and am always willing to share the experiences I gained from the job I held in NREM, my time as a community advisor at University Village (SUV), as a frequent visitor of the Iowa State Multicultural Student Affairs Office, and as a member of CALS Council, Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) student organization, and my multicultural (non-traditional) sorority, Sigma Lambda Gamma.

What is your advice to CALS students?
Get involved. Make friends. Find a place where you belong. For many, that may be within your major/department. For others, like myself, that might be through communities outside of your academic field. Either way, having a sense of belonging and support will be crucial for your success at Iowa State.

Amanda’s advice on building community:
Books, podcasts and such are all well and good for learning how to build an inclusive community, but there’s no real action in that. Instead, put yourself out there and make friends with people who look, think, and act differently than you do. Be intentional in building a diverse and inclusive community around yourself. As you grow this circle, you will expand not only your own experiences and mindset, but also the experiences and mindsets of those around you.