Alexis David - Development Coordinator
My experience at Higher Ground began two years ago, when I found myself drawn in the middle of a snow-storming February to Pierpont Avenue, to this energetic space, where students and tutors worked together: studying, discussing and creating.
Perhaps the coziness of learning during a snowstorm offered me a familiarity of home. I'm from Buffalo, New York and both my parents work in academics. From this initial impression, I knew I wanted to be involved in this place. I knew there was something very unique about this concept of learning.
I grew up surrounded by books, but I didn't understand the importance of academics in my life until college. I graduated from a small liberal arts school, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, on Lake Seneca in upstate New York. Here I studied literature, creative writing, art and art history. It was these professors, these classmates, this landscape that allowed me to understand that it is the asking, the thinking, the analyzing that not only makes me feel the happiest, but also the most useful.
After college, I tried to replicate this environment. I worked in different offices in different locations; however, I didn't find any of it very satisfying. After darting from west to east and back again, I find myself in Salt Lake and able to write, to read (in the most beautiful library in the world), to teach creative and inspiring students, to see free films, to be outside, to rock climb (in a scared and frantic way), to snowboard, and to just generally live well. I'm not sure what's next, but I plan to see if I can make a living out of reading and writing in whatever form that takes.
Perhaps the coziness of learning during a snowstorm offered me a familiarity of home. I'm from Buffalo, New York and both my parents work in academics. From this initial impression, I knew I wanted to be involved in this place. I knew there was something very unique about this concept of learning.
I grew up surrounded by books, but I didn't understand the importance of academics in my life until college. I graduated from a small liberal arts school, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, on Lake Seneca in upstate New York. Here I studied literature, creative writing, art and art history. It was these professors, these classmates, this landscape that allowed me to understand that it is the asking, the thinking, the analyzing that not only makes me feel the happiest, but also the most useful.
After college, I tried to replicate this environment. I worked in different offices in different locations; however, I didn't find any of it very satisfying. After darting from west to east and back again, I find myself in Salt Lake and able to write, to read (in the most beautiful library in the world), to teach creative and inspiring students, to see free films, to be outside, to rock climb (in a scared and frantic way), to snowboard, and to just generally live well. I'm not sure what's next, but I plan to see if I can make a living out of reading and writing in whatever form that takes.
