ST. GEORGE — Utah Tech University is back in session, and staff and students alike say they are looking forward to the spring semester.

Dean of Students Ali Threet said she is most excited about D-Week, when events such as Trailblazer Pageant are staged.

“I love spring semester,” Threet told St. George News. “The top award for Trailblazer Pageant is Miss Trailblazer. We have a great turnout of students that always like to try and do it.”

Public Relations Director Jyl Hall said she always anticipates the joy associated with graduation.

“Commencement is always a highlight of the spring semester,” Hall said. “Students have poured their hearts and souls into earning their degrees and preparing for their future ambitions, so it’s an honor to be part of their celebration and so fun to see graduates celebrating with their families and friends.”

While students are excited for events, they are very focused on their education, too.

Junior Ginevra Molino, a biology major with a biomedical emphasis, is excited to be taking more focused classes now that she has completed her general education requirements.

“I’m taking cool classes this semester,” Molino said. “I’m taking microbiology and lab, protein purification and analysis and advanced physiology and cadaver practicum. I’m excited to learn cool stuff.”

She is also eager to start work as a teaching assistant for the anatomy lab.

“Being a teaching assistant this semester, I’m looking forward to being with the students,” she said. “When they get excited about anatomy, that excites me.”

She emphasized that Utah Tech is a special place to get an education.

“It’s a small school, so you get to know the professors better and they get to know you, and that gives you so many more opportunities that you wouldn’t have in a bigger school,” she said. “Taking upper division courses, you get to know your classmates because we all take the same classes.”

The view doesn’t hurt either.

“Campus is pretty. St. George is beautiful,” she added.

Also anticipating the new semester is Molino’s friend and roommate, sophomore Brianna Frey, who plays soccer and is a business management major.

“I’m on the women’s soccer team and just got back from an injury,” Frey said. “Today was my first practice in a while. I’m really looking forward to it because I feel like my life revolves around soccer.”

But education remains at the forefront of her mind, she said.

“Keeping up with my school is very important to me, too,” Frey said. “I think I look forward to being successful, especially in both school and soccer and finding that balance between them,”

Another popular event during Inclusion Week, which Threet says hosts one of her favorite events of the year, is “Taste Around the World.”

“A lot of our international students from different ethnic and cultural heritages participate. Our police department makes delicious chili every time,” she said, adding that there will be 40 or 50 different types of food available to try.

“A participant from Utah does Dutch oven potatoes and another does funeral potatoes because that’s our culture here,” she said.

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