Pandemic prompted change of major for Lydia Dose

Hampton native Lydia Dose is excited about her future after graduating from Concordia University in May, though business administration is not the career path she had in mind four years ago.
A lot has changed since then, but then adapting to massive, unprecedented change was a fact of life for Dose and her fellow high school class of 2020 graduates all across the country. A global pandemic disrupted the final two months of her time at Hampton High, and in fact directly impacted her decision to change her major.
“I really don’t like to look back and think of things like why did that happen to me, per se, so really I’ve just accepted it at this point,” Dose shared in a phone interview from the Concordia campus in Seward. “There is nothing I could have done to change what happened.”
Agreeing to reflect on her academic experiences during the COVID era, a most challenging time in American history, Dose said it was just different than anything she could have imagined. 
“The end of high school was just a lot different, missing out on track and stuff like that and then of course going online for classes was a lot different,” she recalled.
Dose had already made the decision to attend Concordia University, where she signed to play basketball with the Lady Bulldogs. With in-person classes cancelled at Hampton High, she was able to complete her studies online while also spending time on campus in Seward.
“So even though everything was kind of shut down I actually ended up coming to open gyms earlier than most classes do,” she recalled. “But that ended up also affecting graduation because for me to even attend graduation I had to get tested because one of the girls I had been playing basketball with had tested positive.”
Once she arrived on campus that next fall, she discovered it was anything but business as usual.
“We were told on various occasions that it was different than it had been in years past just because we weren’t able to do all of the meet-and-greet stuff that all the other classes before us were able to do,” she said. “And then by wearing masks everywhere, we weren’t able to get that more personal connection with our classmates and other students on campus.”
Missing that face-to-face interaction and not having as much access to her professors ended up being a major concern for the college freshman, who enrolled at Concordia as a biology major.
“I started off as a biology major, but without in-person classes and all the labs that the other biology and chemistry classes got to do, I just felt like I wasn’t learning as much and the classes seemed to be a lot more difficult for me to understand the concepts,” she admitted. “I think it ended up causing me to change my degree, and I partially think it was because of the way the classes were set up.”
It’s been well documented that a high percentage of college freshmen change their majors, though the circumstances prompting Dose’s particular change of direction was troubling to her, at least initially.
“It definitely was a big challenge, but the support from my family, as well as Concordia has a very supportive community, was really helpful,” she said. “So even though I was completely doing a 180 degree turn in changing my degree I felt supported in what I was doing. The transition was fairly easy, but at the same time I was probably pretty hard on myself thinking that I should have tried a little harder. But without that extra time with professors, I feel like it was almost impossible.”
Dose enrolled at Concordia with thoughts of pursuing a career in veterinary science. After shifting her focus toward business, she began to see other possibilities emerge.
“I’ve actually been working part-time with financial analytics, so I’ve been getting more into that,” she said. “I don’t know if I really see myself going back into veterinarian stuff, specifically, but I definitely see myself getting into something with agriculture, just with my family background and always being involved with FFA and things like that throughout high school.”
With graduation just a few months away, Dose is excited to begin the next stage of life, though not yet sure what or where that will be.
“We are still yet to fully determine that,” she said. “I’m really just kind of open to whatever opportunities present themselves. I am for sure going to be looking into either financial analytics or some sort of job related to that. I’m also interested in management and communications within businesses as well. Human resources management is a lot of what I’ve been focusing on with my studies.”
Dose’s plan right now is to go into the work world for a year or two and then see if she wants to pursue further studies or continue working. What is crystal clear is that she’s looking forward, not backwards, to a time in her life, and world history, that was disruptive, somewhat chaotic, and by any definition just different.
“In spite of what happened, I guess I just try not to think back on it too much,” she concluded. “I know everyone had their challenges because of it, but I am grateful I guess for all the experiences I have had in dealing with something that no one expected.”
Dose is the daughter of Grant Dose and Amanda Mickey.