Dani Jones — Friendships
Class of 2020 | Charger Volleyball & Track | Mason, MI
WORDS: Calli Townsend
Dani Jones came to Hillsdale College because she knew it would challenge her academically and athletically — and she was certainly up to that challenge. She came in as a disciplined, hardworking athlete and a motivated, 4.0 student. And she was determined to keep it that way.
"In high school, classes were just about getting an A. And coming into my freshman year here I kinda kept that mentality," Dani said. "I wanted to get a four-point. I spent all my time in the library, but I didn't really make any friends."
With volleyball as her primary sport, she was a little discouraged when she didn't play very much her freshman year, so she decided to join the track team. Dani had been an all-state long jumper in high school and knew it was something she could do well in.
"I'm glad I joined the track team, but at first I don't think I was doing it for the right reasons."
Dani soon realized the brevity of her four years here and decided to shift her mindset a bit. She said she had to learn to accept her failures and not worry about getting all As all the time. Her time in the library was hindering her relationships and preventing her from meeting some influential people now in her life.
"I think it has just changed all my relationships in general — from looking at what people can give me to rather now it's about what I can give them," she said. "Instead of trying to talk and sound smart and come up with the next thing to say, I can focus on actually just listening to people. I've learned to be a lot more selfless in all my relationships."
She credits fellow volleyball teammate Taylor Bennett, `19, for being part of inspiring this change.
"Taylor was definitely a huge influence on that," she said. "She's the most selfless person I've ever met."
Since then Dani has still excelled in the classroom, helped four Hillsdale teams earn conference titles (Volleyball 2017, Indoor Track 2018, Outdoor Track 2018, and Volleyball 2018), and was elected as one of the 2019 volleyball team captains, all while maintaining and treasuring the relationships she's formed.
Now she's involved in several different Bible studies on campus, including one she leads for the volleyball team, and does private school tutoring on the side.
Her tutoring has played a role in helping her choose her future career: teaching. Dani originally came in wanting to pursue a chemistry major, but has since changed her mind.
"I came in thinking I wanted to do chemistry, but then I took organic and decided I didn't want to do that," she said. "But I came in with a lot of credits, so I could take more classes that I really wanted to instead."
Being able to take extra classes has allowed her to pursue a math major, while still keeping a chemistry minor and adding a classical education minor.
Dani's older brother Nathan Jones,`18, graduated from Hillsdale with the classical education minor as well, and has encouraged her in this pursuit, although it's not at all what she had thought.
"It's funny because when I was early in high school I was so sick of living in Nathan's shadow," she said. "I didn't want to go to college where he goes and I ended up here too. And now he's a teacher and I want to be a teacher. I guess he has had a pretty big influence on me."
The classical education classes have been some of Dani's favorites during her time here.
"I started taking the classes and I've loved that they're just very oriented toward your life, like math is just math — you learn it and do it, but education is about teaching people and how people learn and how we interact with knowledge," she said.
As she is finishing up her career at Hillsdale, she's preparing for a different type of career in the classroom. She said she's leaning toward teaching high school students as it would provide her continuous opportunities to challenge herself academically.
"I think this summer I narrowed it down to wanting to teach high school. I went bak and forth between that and middle school, but with teaching high school I'll be able to use the high level math I've learned," she said. "I want to keep the intellectual rigor."
Where she will teach is yet another question.
"A classical school has the aims that I like, but at a public school I feel like I could teach new kids who haven't had a chance to interact with the classical way of learning at all. It's not just memorizing, it's actually learning."
No matter where she ends up, she'll be sure to impact and inspire many lives.