“I’m very interested in the University of Minnesota cause I wanna freaking get out of Iowa. I’ve been here all my life, I need to branch out.” Kiersch said. But that’s not her only reason for wanting to go the college in a different state. “Also, their campus is beautiful… I wanna go into political science and they have that… And they’re a good school for it.”

For Kiersch, it wasn’t easy deciding what she wanted to do in college. Her mother actually gave her some guidance with the difficult situation. “She told me, ‘You should do political science cause then you can get a job related to it’ and I looked into it and I was like this really is for me. My mom knows me too well.”

But, political science isn’t the only thing Kiersch is interested in. Kiersch considers choir and show choir activities she loves, but in the beginning, that wasn’t the intention. She explained that in junior high there weren’t very many classes you could sign up for and there weren’t many that struck her interest. Kiersch figured, “Well, I could try choir and if I don’t like it then I could just drop it.” So that’s what she did and she liked it enough to continue with it at West. “At West we have amazing choir teachers and it made me like, love it seriously.” Kiersch said. A close friend of Kiersch, Makayla Waite ‘19 also said “She loves show choir probably because she’s a good singer and she likes performing with her friends.”

Despite some of things that Kiersch likes, there are a number of things that get under her skin like social and environmental issues. A social problem being gender inequality. “We’re both women so we kinda get the short end of the stick sometimes and I am not okay with that whatsoever.” Kiersch said.

Kiersch also commented on climate change that she feels people aren’t doing enough and need to accept that climate change is a thing and we need to stop it while we still can. Although these are big issues for Kiersch, she doesn’t see herself taking any part in any clubs or protests in college. “Often times protests don’t invoke any change or end in violence, I just don’t think either of those help to bring change.”