Brandon Klas
2020 Council scholarship recipient, Brandon Klas, will attend UW-Whitewater as a sophomore this fall. Brandon wants to own his own business someday and he is majoring in entrepreneurship. He had a conversation with Katherine, Council Writer, about building relationships, future hopes and lessons he has learned during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Katherine Corbett: While going to college, what lessons have you learned?
Brandon Klas: I have learned that not everything will go the way I hope it will. I have had classes I have struggled with. I have learned that life will always contain challenges. The pandemic made one of my math classes more challenging, for example, because I could not meet my tutor in person. It ended up all right because I set up Zoom meetings for tutoring. While living in the dorms, the person I talked to most was my Resident Assistant (RA). I had some anxiety about being away at college so talking to my RA helped a lot. It took a few months to adjust to college life, so building relationships with my RA and tutors was important.
Katherine: You talked about building relationships being one key lesson you have taken from this experience. How will you apply it in the rest of your life and career?
Brandon: This coming year, I plan to talk to more people. At the beginning of last year, I did not make as much of an effort to do that.
Katherine: What did you learn about yourself throughout the COVID-19 pandemic?
Brandon: I have learned that I can avoid getting bored pretty easily. I am good at finding ways to occupy my time.
Katherine: In your scholarship application, you told us about your goal of owning your own business. Tell me more about that.
Brandon: I have not come up with my business idea yet. I am writing down any ideas that occur to me. I plan to find a job until I come up with a workable business option. I want to explore other areas of business and see which ones I would be interested in pursuing before taking on the challenge of owning my own business. Most of my classes this coming semester are business-related. They all seem pretty interesting and I am looking forward to them.
Katherine: Do you have a “bucket list”? What are some things you hope to do in the future?
Brandon: I have done some traveling with my parents and would love to travel more. Vietnam is a place I would like to go someday. Alaska would be an interesting place to visit, too.
