Honors College alumna Raegan Cardwell spent much of her childhood reading and watching the news. In high school, she worked on the yearbook and even anchored for her school district’s monthly newscast. She always knew she wanted to go into journalism.

Raegan graduated from the Honors College in 2015 with two bachelor’s degrees in journalism and broadcast communications. Now she works as a morning show producer for KPTV in Portland, Oregon. Each night she comes in to write stories and put together newscasts. She decides what stories are important for the day and assigns stories to reporters.

When she was in high school, Raegan didn’t have a whole lot of money saved up for college. She planned on going to a community college but when she applied for the Distinction Scholarship at the Honors College, she ended up getting her four years paid for.

“Instead of having to focus on working a job to put myself through college, I had all this time to really explore different interests and really learn things about the world,” she said.

Looking back, she recognizes the value in taking Honors courses and connecting with students, faculty, and staff in the Honors community. She said the opportunities presented to her by the Honors College fueled her academic path to where she is today.

“I got to really delve into different topics on a wide range of subjects and you know when you go into journalism that’s really important, having a base of knowledge that’s really wide,” she said. “Really getting a good background in history, economics, and just random subjects has been really valuable with the job that I have now.”

Raegan also made full use of her time at UTA by getting involved in a variety of extracurriculars, including UTA News, UTA Radio, The Big Event Committee and Alternative Spring Break.