Jayme Souza: Taking Your Time as an Older College Student
Twenty-five-year-old Jayme Souza has attended the University of Nevada, Reno on-and-off for about seven years as a full-time student, switched majors once, and works full time. This Reno native currently studies Visual Communication in Journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism with a minor in Economics at UNR. Jayme expects to graduate in spring 2021, finishing her college career of seven years while still working full time at Costco and keeping up with a variety of hobbies.
“I don’t know what I want to do yet because I haven’t done my internship but I think I’m going to do something in visual communication, like graphic design,” said Souza.
Souza began her studies at UNR after graduating from Spanish Springs High School. She’s been in college for about seven years now with about five and a half years of course work, having taken a year off from her studies at the age of 20 and another year off in 2019. When she first started, she began as a Business major and then later changed her major to Journalism.
“I like to write and I feel like I’m a pretty good writer,” said Souza “I have a lot of friends who were in journalism beforehand and they love it so I thought I’d give it a shot. I love it so far. I think the major change and all of it’s been pretty good. One thing I noticed since coming back from last time is that I actually care a lot more. I’m matured.”
Souza currently works full time at a hybrid Costco supplier/store doing what she describes as being an “order picker”. The Costco she works at delivers to other businesses and part of her job includes pulling the orders and preparing them on pallets to be sent out.
“I’ve been doing school and work full time for a while so it’s hard to do other stuff but I like to snowboard, go camping. I like to go hiking here and there, gardening and taking care of my plants. I had a full garden last summer and I have, honestly, 30 houseplants.”
When she was younger, Souza had thought about living in SoCal but has since realized how much she really loves living in Reno. One of her favorite things about living in Reno is the weather. Reno offers the diverse climate of all four seasons, plenty of variety for Souza to enjoy all of her outdoor activities. In addition to these outdoor hobbies, she also enjoys some indoor ones such as painting and spending time with her dog Milly and two cats Winston and Muffin.
“I like to be an artistic person but it’s hard for me to express that because I’m not good with my hands artistically,” said Souza. “I like to paint a little bit, but nothing intricate or anything — just like colors, geometric shapes. I think it’s easier to do stuff on the computer like with Illustrator, Photoshop and get my artistic abilities out of that.”
Souza’s aspirations involve more than school or her career. Claiming herself to be someone who is not a “super career motivated person”, Souza wants to finish school and start a family. Souza loves the outdoors and prefers not to be cooped up inside the house. She is passionate about caring for her plants and animals and enjoys growing things which is why she thinks she would like to start a family.
“I don’t really want to work full time,” said Souza. “I’ve realized that in the past year or so because I just took a month off [from work] right when coronavirus started. That was super nice. I got to garden, do all the things I like to do. I think I am a happier person when I don’t work that often so I want to do freelance stuff.”
Jayme Souza can be found online at her Twitter: @JaymeTweeter and Instagram: @jayysouz
