"A Trip to Costa Rica Changed My Career Path": Rebecca's College Story
We recently decided that we’d like to choose a theme each month that will help us connect to some larger idea. Each theme will be chosen based on what’s important to us as a company – allowing us to raise awareness and offer our unique perspective. We kicked off this new ritual in July, and wouldn’t you know? July is National Parks and Recreation Month. When I decided I wanted to sit down and map out these themes that would help bring some sort of intention and connection to my work, I never imagined a more perfect starting place. I thought, “Are you serious?!” It’s the perfect place to start!
July was National Parks and Recreation Month!
After a little digging about National Parks and Recreation month, I found that the mission is to honor the importance of parks and recreation in establishing and maintaining quality of life and contributing to the physical, economic, and environmental well-being of a community. For me, this is not a difficult task. If you know me at all you know the mountains are my happy place! What you might NOT know is that my love of the outdoors was really the catalyst for my entire professional journey.
But let’s back up a little…
What do you want to be when you grow up?
As a high school freshman, 14-year-old Rebecca had set her sights on two possible career paths. I either wanted to go into architecture, because I loved the design of spaces, or become a counselor/therapist. Those were the two areas I was most curious about.
By my junior-senior year (I graduated high school a year early so those two years were combined for me), I had narrowed those choices down to psychology. However, my interest in creating space had not faded and this led me to explore the possibility of industrial psychology. From my own experience with trauma growing up, I recognized the way space made a difference in how I felt, if I felt safe or not safe, exposed or unexposed. The lighting made a difference, the textures made a difference, how much clutter there was made a difference.
A College Path is Decided
So that year, I visited the psychology department at the University of Minnesota to explore what that path would look like. And I’ll be honest, my friend, thinking about doing that work excited me so much! Thinking about how much time I would have to spend on the education to get to the point where I could actually DO the work…did not. What can I say? I’m impatient. And I needed a plan b that was just as thrilling to my young mind. As someone who has always felt that they could live forever and STILL not have time to tap into all my curiosities, I figured it was only a matter of time before a new option would present itself.
That same year, I met my ex-husband Adam. We moved to Minnesota so that I could work for a year before enrolling at the University of Minnesota. Coming from Iowa, this was the only way I could secure in-state tuition. So that’s what I did. Adam and I got married a month after turning 18 and I worked full-time as a receptionist (later working my way up to data entry and then accounts receivable as I continued to work to pay for school).
I wouldn’t say Adam and I were hippies, necessarily. But we absolutely loved nature and were outside as much as humanly possible – biking, camping, hiking, or just sitting outside with friends having the kind of deep conversations folks in their late teens and early 20s have.
This passion wasn’t necessarily new. When I was a little girl, I can remember going into our bathroom and seeing a message from the National Wildlife Federation on the back of a tampon box. In the insert it introduced their Save the Manatee program and explained that by collecting box tops, Tampax would donate a proceed of sales to the fund. That’s how I, in second grade, became the foremost expert on collecting tampon box tops. I had to save those manatees!
So here I am in Minneapolis with a year to reflect and figure out what I wanted to do. I think it was all those recent hours spent in nature that made me think, “Maybe THIS is how I can make a difference.” I had a new mission and I felt like that little girl saving box tops again!
It was decided, I would major in Natural Resources Management, and because majors in this field had to choose a concentration, I chose water quality. I happily went to my classes, taking all the generals, soaking up all the knowledge I could as a first-year college student.
Exploring Costa Rica. I’m the girl in the center wearing an orange t-shirt.
Studying Abroad: Everything Changed
Then, I was given the opportunity to go on a life-changing trip. A study-abroad to Costa Rica. I jumped at the chance not knowing the impact it would have on my life’s trajectory.
This trip was the first time I had ever traveled, the first time I had ever left the country or been on a plane. I was 19 years old and married – I’d never embarked on any sort of adventure without my husband. And here I was. Solo. So I thought, “Ok, let me just go be curious.” Because history showed me that was something I could do.
I asked a lot of questions and the answers I walked away with really opened my eyes to a need in the world that I could fill. While our focus on this trip was resources, the people we encountered didn’t need our help with crops and water – they’d been working the land for generations. What they needed was help with business. This ignited a NEW passion inside me. One, I believed, could work in tandem with all the others. A new layer to my future career path if you will.
Upon my return, I immediately added business education courses to my curriculum, and the rest, as they say, is history. I continued to study Natural Resources Management in college but also worked with my advisor to design a new major to also include Business Education and International Studies.
The lovely Guillermo family. I spent time with them and learned that they needed business help, not farming support.
Honoring the Outdoors
Thankfully, every layer I added on during this crucial time in my life – from exploring the importance of creating space for people to shine to caring for and cultivating resources so that we have access to them for generations, as well as adopting the mindset that the PEOPLE side of business is what matters most – continues to inform my work.
In July, I rode my bike through the mountains and sat soaking up the sun in local parks. I honored the great outdoors for all the ways it brings me joy and helps me to thrive. But I also feel the need to honor it as an early passion, the reason I chose the starting point in higher education that I did, and the beautiful road it eventually set me down to end up here as a business educator and the founder of Peopleside.
Now we’re in August. The theme this month is Diversity Awareness Month and as a company, we’re thinking a lot about the value of diverse backgrounds. How diversity in thought helps guide better decision making, problem-solving, and innovation. Yet again I’m grateful to my past self for showing me that taking the time to learn about different cultures, races, religions, and backgrounds can light a fire and forge new paths. When I went to Costa Rica all those years ago, I allowed myself curiosity and it changed my life.
