What is a passion of yours that you’re pursuing?

“Well I’m majoring in music education! I’m aiming and hoping to be a school band director someday.”

What made you choose that career path?

“It was really the teachers that I had as a high schooler and a middle schooler. I was just really lucky and had a ton of fantastic teachers, especially my band directors. They were great and amazing role models. They really went above and beyond in terms of trying to be there for their students and trying to help out and pushing us to do our absolute best. Even when we weren’t doing our absolute best, they would just say ‘Okay, maybe today isn’t the day. Tomorrow we’ll keep working at it and if we keep doing that then we’ll do really well in the future.’ I just decided that I really wanted to be that kind of person for young adults and teenagers who may not have that in their lives. So that’s what my plan is.”

Is there a specific moment you remember that inspired you or reminded you why you’re doing it?

“I struggled with math throughout middle school and into ninth and tenth grade. In eleventh grade my calculus teacher changed everything. He was very approachable and he made math fun and, as someone who had struggled with it, making math fun was insane to me! So just trying to be someone like that became important to me. The way he taught really clicked with me and I not only did well at math from then on but I enjoyed it as well. Band helped in a slightly different way. I’ve always been a rather shy person and like to keep to myself, and there were all of these different opportunities to try out for honor band and state things and I wasn’t going to do it, but then my eleventh grade band director said ‘I think you should try this; it would be a great experience for you.’ So she really pushed me to step out of my shell and pursue those things.”

– Allison Hansen

Beneath The Crown was created by Nick Theisen (‘15). It is inspired by Humans of New York (HONY) and aims to bring the community of Gustavus Adolphus College closer together by providing the perspectives of the many different people who live and work at the school.