Three Things Every Aggie Should Do

Brittany Hardin ’09 believes there are three things every Aggie should do while at Texas A&M:  study abroad, find ways to apply knowledge and skills gained inside the classroom to activities outside the classroom, and have fun.

“Don’t take yourself too seriously,” she advises with a smile.  “Enjoy the experience.”

The energetic Houston native practices what she preaches.  While pursuing a degree in management and a minor in dance—a combination of studies she figures qualifies her for “the most odd” designation—she has studied in France, used the leadership and management skills she learned in her human resources class to produce her own dance show, and gone to Ring Dance wearing the same dress worn by her mother and aunt for their Ring Dances.  And that’s a mere sampling of her Aggie experience.  She’s also a student worker with Aggie Football,  a Mays blogger, and a HelpLine Volunteer.  Her past involvements include the Abbott Family Leadership Conference (delegate and director), Fish Camp counselor, and participant in both the MSC Stark Northeast Trip and the National Character in Leadership Symposium.  If you’re thinking Brittany is some kind of Super Aggie... well, you may right.


“It Takes an Aggie Tribe to Raise a Child”
Some things are just meant to be, and given the fact that both of Brittany’s parents are Aggies—Eddie Hardin is class of ’79 and Karen Johnson Hardin class of ’80—her own presence at A&M was practically guaranteed.  Although she admits she briefly considered Kilgore as one of her fallback options, because a lot of the friends she danced with in high school went on to be Rangerettes, her college of choice was never really in doubt.

“My dad played football here,” she explains, “I haven’t missed a game on Kyle Field since I was four.  Actually, I believe someone in my family has been present at every single football game since 1975.  My dad is still tight with all his football buddies.”  She shrugs good-naturedly.  “It takes an Aggie tribe to raise a child.  I’m just a product of that, and I can’t imagine spending four years any place else.”

Needless to say, attending A&M makes for some great shared moments between Brittany and her parents.  Still, in some ways, her Aggie experience is uniquely her own—a truth that was brought home to her on Ring Day.

“I blog for the Mays Business School, and I remember writing about my Aggie Ring.”  She smiles pensively.  “It was something I knew was going to happen my whole life, but I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be coming up to it.  Then, once I got it—and my whole family was there, and my mom and dad and I took pictures with our three rings—I looked at it and thought about its importance as a symbol.  And I realized that even though mine is the same ring and looks the same, what it means to each of us is so different.  To my dad it symbolizes the blood, sweat, and tears and what happened on Kyle Field.  To my mom it signifies changing her major from accounting to education and realizing her true calling was to be a teacher.  For me it represents self-discovery and international travel.”

The way Brittany sees it, international travel is an absolute must for every student at Texas A&M.  As a participant in the Academy for Future International Leaders, she studied in France last summer, making the most of her sojourn overseas with side trips that covered most of Eastern Europe.  It was, she says, an eye-opening experience that exposed her to “totally different viewpoints of the world.”

“The way the world is going, study abroad is absolutely essential,” she insists.  “You have to, have to, have to.  It doesn’t matter if you want to, and it’s not a question of, ‘If I can.’  You need to.”


“You Never Learn in a Bubble”
One of the things Brittany liked most about studying abroad was the way her studies overseas provided a real-world chance to observe and put into practice the principles she’s learned in her studies here at home.  She sees her outside-the-classroom activities in much the same light.

Take last semester’s foray into producing, for example.  The chance to produce her own show came through Brittany’s heavy involvement with the Dance Department.  As producer, she was responsible for everything:  setting up and running rehearsals, lighting, publicity, making the costumes ... you name it.  Several students were producing shows, but Brittany was the only business major among them.

“It was an incredible experience!” she enthuses.  “I saw how the leadership and management skills I’ve learned from human resources and all those other courses played into how I could manage as a choreographer.”  Since her big-picture goal involves art-management, the hands-on opportunity to see how it all fits together was invaluable.  

“I love connecting things,” Brittany goes on to explain.  “I’m always doing that—connecting what I read and learn to what I do at work, asking myself, ‘How can I connect this to what I’m learning in math or statistics, to what I’m doing in Fish Camp?’  You never learn in a bubble.  I remember the first day of my New Student Conference.  Dean Loudder of the Business School told us, ‘We don’t want silos of education.’  In other words, everything I’ve done is part of my Aggie education.”

In Brittany’s case that education is a blend of academics, study abroad, student leadership, and selfless service.    It’s a combination she highly recommends.

For more information on Fish Camp, please visit http://fishcamp.tamu.edu.

For information on the Abbott Family Leadership Conference, MSC Stark Northeast Trip, and other Memorial Student Center Programs, please visit http://mscc.tamu.edu.

Information on Study Abroad opportunities can be found at http://international.tamu.edu/SAPO/.

The Mays student blogs are at http://mays.tamu.edu/blog/.

HelpLine information is available at http://scs.tamu.edu/emergency/helpline.asp.

Contributed by:
Kathy DiSanto, Communications Specialist
Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs