Kayla Manley: Fall 2022 High Honors Student Scholarship Recipient

I am going to be a Graduate student at Michigan State University starting this fall 2022. I graduated with my bachelor's from MSU in May of 2022. My degree is in Human Resources and Labor Relations. I’ve chosen this field because I want it to lead down a road where I can help people. I want people to feel comfortable at work and to give people a voice to speak up for themselves. I am part of The Salt Network at Michigan State which is a church organization. This scholarship will help me pay for my tuition going forward this fall. I am extremely grateful for the generous men and women who help students financially be able to chase their dreams. It means so much and it will be going toward a student's future.

My school will have on campus classes this fall. I am very excited to have our university transition back to in person classes. This past year we had in person classes for the majority of the year, but we had to wear masks in all inside settings. This fall we won’t have to wear masks and while I believe it is important to keep the public safe from pandemics, it will feel nice to have a sense of normalcy at school. 

I believe technology will continue to grow over the coming years, we have so much to learn and discover. Regarding macro perspective, I think technology will evolve into less human interaction with numbers and sales reports for businesses, technology will have the capacity to transform data. Companies in the near future will decide if they want to remain in some capacity of having at home workers or backtrack and have workers come into the office to complete work. 

My major is Human Resources and Labor Relations which I do believe to have a good position for the future. Before deciding on my career in HR I did some research on the growing number of companies that need HR and it was a large number that keeps growing. I’m sure HR has been around for many generations, but it has just started to show face to me, and I would like to be one of the many who can make a difference in whichever company I find myself in.

At my current place of work my managers have a rewards program of sorts to recognize the employees they feel have gone above and beyond in a work-related incident. The reward is a green ticket where the manager writes the name of the employee and their name as well to state which manager nominated the individual. Then there are certain dates during the year that management will draw several green tickets from a wheel and whosoever names are drawn receive a prize. My act of paying it forward was that when I received a green ticket from a manager that I would instead have the manager write to an employee who I feel has gone above and beyond because as a coworker I see many acts of kindness, and this is one way that I would love to pay it forward. I don’t know if anyone that I have transferred my green ticket to has won a prize yet, but it makes me feel happy to be able to possibly give back to a coworker who does so much for our company. 

Regarding online organizations and remaining connected I believe that it is very important for all of us to remain socially connected with others. It's been an important job of everyone to look out for each other and remain safe and distant so that we can reduce the spread of COVID but that doesn’t mean we have to cut off all contact with people. The internet during this pandemic has helped people feel connected and not so alone in a world where no one was certain what was happening or going to happen. By joining organizations online people had hobbies to attend and were actively seeking out positive reinforcement instead of just being alone. 

The humanitarian issues that our world faces is heartbreaking and one day when my education has paid off and I finally have a job within my degree I want to send money to help people who are going through famine or disease, although right now I may not have the money I do have other ways I can help. My volunteering for organizations within my community and school community where I can volunteer my service in whatever capacity is needed. Gathering food, I can give to shelters or old clothes that I can pass on these are the things I can do for the time being. I want to give a voice to kids who have had hardships in their life and give them motivation to reach toward their dreams because no matter what they’ve been through they can always choose a brighter future for themselves.