Student Work 2024
With a wide smile on her face and sparkles in her eyes, she tucks in her bleached blonde hair behind her ear, catching her breath.
“I graduated last year in April and then I started working as a sterilization tech in a dental office and that’s when I kind of realized that I didn’t really like being a sterilization technician,” Briana Aranda said.
After graduating from high school, Aranda joined an accelerated dental assistant program at WSU Tech. After joining the program, there was a setback – Aranda had to act fast after a professor resigned, leaving the program in limbo. What was originally a two-year program now became eight weekly road trips.
After the panic left her mind, she enrolled in a quarter long dental assistant program in Salina, Kansas. Two hours away from her house.
For eight weeks on Saturdays, Aranda drove all the way from Wichita, Kansas, to Salina. After the long drive, she would spend a longer school day there. Her days in Salina were filled with labs and lectures. There was no room for her to breathe.
After a restless school day, she would start the same two-hour drive back home.
But Wichita wasn’t always her home.
Her family, originally from Phoenix moved to Wichita seeking a lower cost of living and more job opportunities. After years of living in Wichita, she now considers it home, but her heart still aches for Phoenix.
Long drives were common for Aranda to visit families and friends back in Phoenix, but these eight-weekly road trips to Salina did not bring the same warmth as Phoenix or the love of her close ones. There was a long journey ahead of her.
After eight weekly road trips to and from Salina and a change in plans, Aranda finally graduated. After completing her program, she went straight to work as a dental sterilizer in Wichita.
I was working as a dental assistant, over a year and I really hated it,
Aranda said.
Yet again, she was thrown a setback, but she refused to settle for anything less than happiness.
Initially choosing dental hygiene to help others, Aranda had to figure out her next step. Trying to balance both her passion and purpose in life, she took her next step forward.
Now, almost halfway through her first semester in university, Aranda is confident in her decisions.
Having transferred credits from both Butler Community College and WSU Tech, Aranda started her first year at Wichita State University as a junior.
“I just don’t think that I was very passionate, doing that anymore, and I think I just wanted to help people in different aspects of life, not just necessarily like healthcare,” Aranda said.
Aranda certainly does help others outside of school and work. Striving not only for her own happiness but the happiness of others.
Briana is a great friend and a funny person. And she made a great impact on me to be more outgoing and be more confident with myself,
texted Seleste Montañez, a friend of Aranda.
Aranda sighs and smiles, looking back at her journey in becoming a junior university student.
I think that’s kind of like my most proudest moment is to be able to know like what I want and doing what I want and not being afraid to overstep,
Aranda said.
Aranda is now on track to earn a Bachelor of Arts in integrated marketing communication with content and fulfillment.