I'm a Husker &

Alanah Charles memorized the number of miles between her Miami hometown and her dorm on campus. It’s a big number, but it’s not making her any less excited to start building a new home at Nebraska.

Korben Ockander, a junior architecture major from Lincoln, talks about how the start of each semester feels like its own homecoming — and serves as an opportunity to discover more on campus.

Everyone has their own unique journey toward finding their Husker home. No one knows this better than Meredith Fontana, who discovered UNL during a pit stop on a family road trip.

Caleb Hans and his Husker Rocketry team spent a year preparing and perfecting their rocket designs for the International Rocket Engineering Competition in Midland, Texas, last July. All that work was set to culminate in two and a half tense minutes when it came time to launch.

Junior communication sciences and disorders student Avery McGee has been assisting with research studies happening in the Learning Lab for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities since the spring. As someone born with cleft lip and palate, she brings personal experience to the work that offers a chance to help people on similar journeys.

Interning for the Academy of Country Music last spring, senior Emily Frech had the opportunity to take a leading role in staging one of the organization’s biggest fundraising events in Las Vegas.

Sophia Rojas, a junior fisheries and wildlife major from Omaha, has taken advantage of study abroad programs to pursue her passion of conservation and management. The experiences helped her secure an internship at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha this summer, working with some of the same animals she encountered in the wild.

Back in high school, juniors Brock Anderson and Logan Hoffman of Lincoln built a business to help place local youth sports officials with games. As Huskers, they brought a new element of their business to the Center for Entrepreneurship’s New Venture Competition, earning both insights and cash prizes for their pitch.

Once a camper herself, senior Alexis Montecuollo is now the outreach coordinator for Camp Kesem, a student-run summer camp for kids dealing with a parents’ cancer diagnosis.

Brandon Jurgens, a junior from Filley, Nebraska, signed up for the Rural Fellows program wanting to see what he had to offer rural Nebraskans as a Husker student. His project will tap both his communications and his intrapersonal skills as he surveys Knox County locals on how to best improve their emergency comms systems.

A paraeducator for Crete Middle School, Josie Sullivan was looking for a way to elevate her role in the classroom Through the new Nebraska Teacher Apprenticeship Program, she was able to stay in the classroom while working toward her career goals.

Senior Emma Bullerman grew up helping her dad, the restoration director at Prairie Plains Resource Institute, with his work out in the field. Today, she’s right back alongside him as an intern for the organization, building off her work from the same UNL program he graduated from in the 90s.