Meet Hannah Walsh, Class of 2015

Friday, May 8, 2015

Hannah Walsh
Political Science major
Spirit Lake, Iowa

Hannah WalshThere’s something very real and imminent about the way Hannah Walsh speaks of her dreams—she’s already made remarkable strides toward them. A Political Science major at the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Walsh ultimately hopes to effect change in higher education as a policymaker. So far, she has worked with the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, and served as a board member for the Iowa School for the Deaf Foundation. The last two and a half years of her college career were spent on the Iowa Board of Regents as the student member. Although she represents all Iowa regent institutions—and even wears other schools’ colors when she visits their campuses—she’s most at home in Hawkeye black and gold.

Why are you glad you came to the University of Iowa?

I’m so incredibly glad that I came to the University of Iowa because of all the amazing things I’ve been able to experience, things I never in a million years would have thought I’d be doing. For example, sitting on the Board of Regents, representing these students here at the University of Iowa along with the other institutions. The people that are here is really what makes this place incredible.

What was your best moment here?

I think probably my favorite moment was my first board meeting actually here on campus, getting to interact with the student leaders on campus and talking with them. That’s when it really resonated with me, the bigness of what I’m doing now and the impact that my work on the regents is doing—being both a student and living that every single day, but also working on that policy as a regent.

If you could talk to yourself as an incoming freshman, what advice would you give yourself?

If I could talk to myself as an incoming freshman, I think I would tell myself to pursue what you love, explore, do things that you think might be crazy, and see if you like them or not. I think it’s just as important to know what you love as it is to know what you hate, so getting those experiences and knowing step-by-step where you want to be 10 years from now is really depending on, depends on the different experiences and kind of mold you as a person to figure out what you’re meant to do in this world.

Why was the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences important to your experience here?

The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences allowed me to experience things that I didn’t even know were possible. They really emphasized working and experiencing both your education and in and out of the classroom. And I think because of that it’s really developed who I am as a person, and like I said, I’ve experienced things I never would have in a million years thought were possible.

—Interview by Nora Heaton (BA 2013) and Dora Grote (Class of 2015); photo by Jill Tobin

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.