Introduction:  Rachel Ploharz

Hello everyone,

My name is Rachel Ploharz. I am a senior at Weber State pursing a degree in English Teaching, minoring in Multimedia Journalism Teaching.  I aspire to be the fun, yet strict, high school English teacher every student hates, but secretly thanks every time they are required to write anything later on in life. In high school, I was an editor for our literature magazine titled, “unlocked” and enjoyed my time there immensely, which is why I chose to minor in Communications.

I have always wanted to become a teacher, in fact, I can’t remember a time I didn’t want to teach. When I was five years old, my parents gave me a rubber stamp collection, which I promptly used to assign all my stuffed toys, siblings and the family dog writing assignments which I could stamp my approval on.

In addition to being a full time student at WSU this semester, I am also planning my wedding, which will take place this upcoming spring. I have wonderful 8-year-old step son named Keagan, whom I am in the process of legally adopting as my own. We have a dog named Chester, who is entirely too smart for his own good. In fact, this summer my fiancé, Greg, and I built a tree house for Keagan to play in, and Chester was so jealous that in one day he taught himself to climb the 10 ft. ladder so he could join in the fun. However, both my son and the dog, have yet to figure out how to get the dog down of the tree house once he is up there.

As a family we enjoy traveling and camping. I guess I should say glamping, or glamour-camping, as we have a pop-up camper with solar powered lights, heaters, air conditioning, water heater, and pump that we take on every adventure. This summer we went every other weekend, and explored a lot of Utah’s national forests and parks. My favorite trip this summer involved a snow ball fight on the fourth of July. We traveled far enough into the Unitas that we were able to find a few patches of snow. 

This semester I am taking quite a few communication classes that will push me out of my comfort zone, such as News Reporting, and Digital Media that requires a lot of talking with strangers and heavy AP styled editing. As an English Major I am very familiar with MLA style, but AP still feels a little foreign to write in. So I am looking forward to struggling through the style change and improving my writing this semester through this class; although I must confess I am very grateful I can do it from inside my comfort zone, here in my bed while Chester snores at my feet and Keagan and Greg outside unpacking the trailer from last weeks adventure.