Meet Our First Year Advisors!
GEAR UP College Advisors provide graduates with proactive support and guidance through their first year of higher education. Our team includes College Advisors Kyle Lund in Southern Utah, Alexia Jensen in Salt Lake Valley & out of state, and Wade Hirschi in Northern Utah.
Kyle Lund serves the Southern Utah region, including Snow College and SUU
Alexia Jensen serves the Salt Lake Valley, including SLCC and schools outside of Utah
Wade Hirschi serves Northern Utah, including Weber and USU
Our students come from diverse backgrounds and face many barriers in continuing their education after high school. College Advisors can make that transition easier by helping students ease into to their new environment and connect them with on-campus resources. With that in mind, we’d like you to meet our three Utah State University STARS! GEAR UP College Advisors.
Kyle Lund
Many of you already know Kyle and have worked with him at school or college visit events in the southern region of the state. As a graduate of both Snow College and Southern Utah University, Kyle knows a lot about navigating the system. He holds a Master of Public Administration with a Higher Education Administration Emphasis from SUU.
Kyle wants to provide mentoring advice to all students, including those taking a gap year to work, travel, intern, volunteer, or perform military or religious service. In the coming year, he will be working with both high school students and recent graduates. These students include those going to Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University, Dixie State University, Mountainland Technical College, Snow College, Southern Utah University, and Utah State University Eastern.
Alexia Jensen
Alexia, or Lexie, may also be a familiar face, having served students and families at Taylorsville High School in the Granite School District before moving into the college advisor role. After graduating from Gilroy California, she moved to Idaho and attended BYU Idaho. It took her a while to decide what she wanted to do, eventually got a bachelor’s degree in university studies with a minor in English.
As a GEAR UP advisor, and having gone through the process herself, she is excited to help students with their own process and in figuring out what they want to do after high school. She serves students attending colleges in the Salt Lake Valley, and also those students attending college out of state.
Wade Hirschi
As a Northern Utah native from Tremonton, Wade worked at GEAR UP for a year, planning campus visits and summer camps, before taking a job as an elementary school counselor. He is a Utah State University graduate with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the school. In the coming year, he will work with students going to USU, Bridgerland Applied Technology College, Weber State University, and Davis Technical College.
Wade says that the colleges in his region “offer plenty of resources for their students to be successful. The biggest barrier to students is that they don’t know about them. My takeaway from the tours is that asking questions can lead you to many resources and possibly the best school FOR YOU.”
College advisors help students with mentors and access to free GEAR UP resources. Our college advisors cover all public universities and colleges in Utah. Contact information for each GEAR UP advisor is available online at GEARUPforcollege.com.