Written by Tabitha Redder

While some fear statistics and number crunching, former Honors College student Megan Meier welcomes it.

Meier graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Anthropology, then she continued her studies to receive a Master’s of Science in Criminal Justice at Texas State University in 2013. As a graduate student, she worked as a teaching assistant for several statistics classes.

She said her time at the Honors College truly prepared her for graduate school and ultimately, her current career as a crime analyst in DFW.

Photo provided by Megan Meier

“I work for a police department where we get reports every day. We get calls and logs of what’s going on,” she said of her current position. “I add them into a system, and we can do everything from forecasting crime patterns or finding out what areas in the city are hotspots for crime.”

When she inserts qualitative data into a system, it categorizes the crime and can reveal helpful information.

“It tells you what the crime is, and we can classify that as mild, moderate, severe, and we can actually plot that on a map near an address or GPS coordinates,” Meier said.

She said one can continue compiling crime data until a pattern or discrepancy is noticed.

“In criminal justice, you find out, you know, that five percent of street addresses make up a majority of the problems we have in a city,” she said.

She said she enjoys the math element of her position the most.

“I like looking at data. I like looking at numbers,” she said. “Whenever we get to do crime reports and say, ‘Crime went up, crime went down, here’s a forecast for what we’re expecting next, if we continue on this trend…’ that’s the fun part. Getting to look at numbers. I like patterns.”

As an undergraduate, the research requirements to fulfill the Honors degree seemed promising to her.

“I went to one of the open houses, and they said I’d get to do research and go above and beyond what you’d do in normal classes,” she said.

She knew this would prepare her for research in graduate school.

“Research methods is the best thing. You use a lot of it in graduate school, which I liked,” Meier said. “You’re doing research for your thesis or dissertation for your masters or PhD.”

Her anthropology classes in particular proved to be beneficial beyond her work as an undergraduate.

“There was a lot of discourse in anthropology. We would sit around the table and discuss things, which helped me a lot in graduate school,” she said. “It’s like all the classes now are discussion. There may be some lecture [in graduate school], like the math courses had lecture, but it was mostly reading, discussing, adding to the conversation.”

She also praised the skills she learned enrolling in more rigorous coursework to fulfill Honors requirements, including time management.

“The Honors College made graduate school pretty easy, honestly. You learn time management because you’re kind of in a crunch” she said of completing additional coursework for Honors credit.

Many Honors students receive the bulk of their Honors credits via contracting. They set up a contract in advance to fulfill Honors credit for a non-Honors course. This can include an extra project or an extra presentation, among other methods. Usually, they work closely with their professor throughout the semester to ensure they receive credit.

“I loved my time at the Honors College. I liked getting to go make Honors Contracts,” she said. “You didn’t just rely on what the honors college already provided, you could go in and add things to courses you wanted to take. I enjoyed doing that.”

Meier shared that the Honors College offered her more than just academics.

“I’m actually still best friends with two people from the Honors College. One is traveling, the other is settled in DFW, too,” she said. “We were all three in anthropology.”

As for current Honors students, she urged them to avoid fixating on perfection in their studies.

“I think the Honors College kids are kind of perfectionistic and like to study,” she said. “They should probably be patient with themselves. Even if you think you’re not getting where you should be and when you should be there.”

Meier relates her advice to her feelings as a student.

“I don’t think I enjoyed graduate school and got the most out of it,” she said. “I really wanted to get to work. I wanted to do that as quickly as possible. Sometimes research for your Master’s takes a bit longer than you think, and it puts you off 6 months to a year. It’s like, adjusting your expectations of yourself within graduate school or your career; Either could throw you a curveball.”

She added that it’s wise to approach studies and the future with a realistic mentality.

“You need to adjust your expectations of being at the very top because sometimes that doesn’t happen. [Students] can beat themselves up about it, and I don’t think they should do that,” she said. “I think they should be happy that they’ve made it this far in the Honors College. That’s more than a lot of students do at UTA. Every now and then you can take a break. If you do badly on an exam, it’s not the end of the world.”

Written by Tabitha Redder

One rising junior in the Honors College lives a busy, prolific double life as a musician.

West Meyers, junior in accounting and finance, performs at Potbelly Sandwich Shop in Euless, Texas, on November 30, 2018.
Photo by Tabitha Redder

West Meyers majors in both accounting and finance, and while his dedication to academics is apparent in his on-campus roles in the College of Business Goolsby Leadership Academy and competitive director for the Esports club, his passion for music is apparent when he raves about blues.

“I thought about majoring in music when I got here, but I just feel like the kind of music I play comes entirely from the soul,” he said about choosing his academic path. “You can learn about that without taking classes for it.”

Meyers said he pursues business because it interests him, but ideally, he’d have a career in music.

“I decided to go for business because I think it’s a very practical degree. I think it’s something that will help me, and it’s still something I’m interested in. I decided to say, ‘I’ll just do music outside of class,’ and that’s worked out very well for me,” he said. “I’ve thought about ways to maybe do business with recording studios or record labels, and that would be an interest of mine, for sure.”

For now, he studies during the week. Then, he jets to a music gig every Friday after class where he plays original pieces and covers musicians he admires, most of whom are all decades older than him. He scored a gig playing live music at a restaurant chain during the lunch rush, one in Southlake and another in Euless.

“A couple of my original songs are straight blues. Some of them are blues rock and some of them don’t have ties to blues at all. I love playing people like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Albert King – B.B. King is great as well – artists like them. Fats Domino, even,” Meyers said. “He’s kind of considered rock-and-roll, but I think old rock-and-roll and blues go hand-in-hand, so I love playing that kind of music. It’s my favorite.”

Meyers’ musical talents are expansive but said his instrument of choice is guitar. He plays six-string electric guitar and dabbles in acoustic and bass. He also plays drums and a bit of piano, and of course, he sings.

“I haven’t gotten very far with piano,” he said with a laugh. “If I ever get the time, I’d love to continue exploring that, so I’m still a beginner at piano.”

His passion was surely curated by his early life in a music-filled household.

“My oldest brother loved Bob Dylan and this band called Ride, which is almost a psychedelic-rock-shoegaze kind of band. My middle brother loved the Beatles and music like that; Classic rock. My dad loved blues and classic rock as well,” he said of his early music influences. “I grew up listening to that, and I took to it.”

He reminisced about one particular Christmas in which his parents surprised all three brothers with gifts that would birth Meyers’ passion for music.

“I may have been younger than the first grade, and my brothers were older than me, so they got full size guitars while I got a smaller, beginner’s acoustic guitar.”

From there, his mother urged him to play his first public performance at his third-grade talent show. He said he wasn’t too focused on guitar until middle school, though, when he discovered John Mayer.

“Early John Mayer is a lot of pop stuff, but he started playing blues about 2005. I started listening to that,” Meyers said. “Things he plays on the guitar are incredible, and I really connected with the songs he wrote around that time.”

He said he forced himself to learn Mayer’s songs, and his skills improved because the material was challenging.

“That’s when I started taking music more seriously, learning songs that were more difficult and finding songs that not just my brothers or my dad listen to but things I listened to, and I listened to more than they did because it was stuff I could connect to and relate to,” he said.

Years later, he’s no stranger to public performances, and he appreciates his weekly lunchtime gigs.
“It’s cool sometimes to go out and play for people who are not there to hear you, and are not there to even – most of them don’t even know the restaurant has live music – So it’s very refreshing to go in there and play for people who have no idea who you are and honestly don’t care about what you’re playing,” he gushed. “Every now and then, they’ll drop a dollar or two in your tip jar and say, ‘This is fantastic! You’re really talented, and you made my lunch hour so much better,’ things like that. It’s really great to hear that, and of course, to just take a moment and relieve some stress, to do what you enjoy doing for two hours, which is exactly what I’m doing when I play.”

In college, many students are stressed, and Meyers is perhaps juggling more than most.

“I look at it in the sense that I’m getting a lot of cool experiences, I’m learning a lot and I’m challenging myself,” he said. “When I get into the professional world as a business graduate, I’ll have experience in high stress situations. I have experience with the more rigorous workload.”

However, he said sometimes class, extracurricular activities and music do feel overwhelming at times, but he can manage.

“I think the important thing to realize is if you’re doing something you enjoy, and you have the time for it, and you’re not so stressed out that you can’t handle it, then I think it helps you to take on that much. Especially at our age where we can handle all of it, I guess. We won’t be able to do that forever,” he said. “I do take on a lot, and it does get hard, but if now is not the time to take on that challenge, then there is no time to face that challenge. I welcome it, and I actually enjoy taking on that responsibility.”

He joined the Honors College as a freshman, and appreciates what it has offered him throughout college, including the rigorous course load.

“I figured it was going to be the thing that helped me stand out when I graduated, and now I have a few things that will help me do that. It was just another opportunity I wanted to take and make the most of,” he said. “Now, I think it will be a good addition. It’s not the only thing I’m doing, but it’s still a very important thing that I see helping me in the future.”

Looking ahead, he plans to record original music with a little help.

“This guy walked into the shop while I was playing one day. His name is Chris Thompson, he’s the drummer of the Eli Young Band, which is a very popular country band. I’ve been in contact with him,” Meyer said, his excitement almost tangible.

Meyers said Thompson saw his talent and urged him to record, but his workload this semester hasn’t allowed it to happen just yet.

“Whenever I finish, he’s going to try to take me under his wing and see what the recordings sound like and get them worked on and things like that,” Meyers said. “I don’t think I needed the music degree, although the more time you spend exploring music and the more time you spend expanding on it, it definitely makes you a better musician and gives you new perspectives to explore your music with. I think that I’m writing stuff that people are enjoying.”

Written by Tabitha Redder and Madison Ray

In addition to completing more rigorous academic work, many of the students in the Honors College juggle multiple positions on and off campus. This semester, we created the Honors College Spotlight Series to highlight deserving students in the department who hustle toward graduation. Here is a selection from the students featured in October. Get to know them!

JASMINE TAYLOR

Photo by Madison Ray

Junior Jasmine Taylor studies Music Education, Business Leadership and Philosophy within her Interdisciplinary Studies major in the Honors College. She was born in Memphis, Tenn. and raised in Arlington.

She keeps busy on campus as the Student Director at the Leadership Honors Program!

Taylor said she was initially wary of joining the Honors College due to the more rigorous course load, but she’s glad she took the plunge.

“I didn’t think that someone of my academic stature could do it, but I realized I had a lot more to offer than I gave myself credit for,” she said. “I took that risk and kind of went the extra mile and did the essays — which I’m not one to do — and I got in. It was well worth it.”

For fun: Taylor said she’d enjoy salmon nigiri, steak and French fries if she was limited to just three foods for her life!

HAYLEY KLOVENSKI

Photo by Madison Ray

Nursing freshman Haley Klovenski was also featured in the series in October. She hails from Katy, Texas!

“I get to meet people who also have diverse views and nerds like me, who want to go do, and learn, more,” she said of the Honors College.

Klovenski said she also enjoys the small class size, Honors Colloquium Series, the CAB Reading Room (who doesn’t?) and free printing offered to Honors College students. She added that her peers’ motivation inspires her.

“See[ing] other kids that want to go above and beyond, like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool.’”

For fun: Klovenski said she’d like to live like Michelle Obama, Zendaya or Renée Fleming for a day.

“I want to be a kick-butt woman with great talent and passion who is able to help others and be a great role model to all,” she said. “Plus they all could afford some good shoes.”

TOMMY TRAN

Photo by Madison Ray

Another student featured in October includes computer science junior Tommy Tran. His hometown is here in Arlington! On campus, Tran serves as the public relations officer for the Honors College Council and as an Honors Advocate.

“Free printing and early registration are big pluses,” Tran said of the resources offered to Honors College students.

He also said Honors College classes encourage students to learn about the course subjects instead of students solely studying for tests.

“It makes you really interact with your professor and ask more about the subject,” Tran said.

For fun: Tommy said he is fond of video game scores and enjoys listening to video game composers.

Want to see more of the HCSS? Follow the Honors College on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!