Coming from a large university, Park transfer discovers ambitious career goal
PARKVILLE, Mo. -- “I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t know what I wanted to study,” said MacKenzie Coder.
Coder, now 22, is a senior Communications major at Park University who hasn’t had a smooth route in college. After three semesters in Columbia, Missouri at the University of Missouri, she knew something needed to change. Those three semesters of college had taken Coder’s love for education away.
“School always just came easily to me, which changed quite a bit when I went to college,” Coder explained. “I struggled quite a bit just because I just didn’t really know what I wanted to do. So I didn’t like what I was studying and I didn’t really care to do the homework. I just didn’t understand a lot of why I had to do the things I did. So I didn’t do them because I didn’t understand the point.”
Bringing a halt to her education in December of 2018, Coder remained in her Columbia apartment and worked at a bar. After her lease ended in the summer of 2018, she returned home to live with her parents in Smithville and save on expenses.
“I started talking to some people that I knew and my mom worked with to kind of get an idea of what they do and what I would be good at doing,” Coder said.
She ended up opting to return to school in August of 2019 and chose Park University.
“Park was just close. I knew I didn’t want to go to Maple Woods because I’ve heard really bad things about it,” Coder said. “I have a friend that played softball here. That kind of influenced that decision because she liked it. So I applied and got in and started going here.”
Once again, education became an important aspect of Coder’s life. Graduating from Smithville High School in May of 2017, Coder rediscovered her love for education with a more identified educational plan at Park.
Coder admitted that one of her favorite years of education was her senior year, saying “it was just kind of free and easy. I didn’t have a lot to worry about because I was almost done with school and didn’t have a lot of academic work to do. It was just pretty easy.”
Throughout high school, she participated in cheerleading, student council and was a team manager for the baseball team all four years. With the baseball team, which her older brother played on, her favorite memory came her sophomore year when they had a third-place finish at State. It was her brother’s senior year and it was the first year they made it to State since the 1970s.
That trip to State near St. Louis wasn’t the first time she had traveled for her brother’s baseball games. She had grown up doing just that throughout her childhood, going to many tournaments in St. Louis and Omaha. That is what created a greater familial bond.
“I always looked up to my parents and my older brother,” Coder said. “ I wouldn’t really call him a role model at the time. I just kind of looked up to him to learn what to do and what not to do. Learning from his mistakes since he was just like a couple years older than me.”
Coder’s family has roots in rural Kansas. Her mother grew up on a farm in Valley Falls and her father was one of eight children raised on a farm in Effingham with only his mother after his father passed away early in his childhood.
“We’ve always been really close,” said Coder of her family. “We were just always around each other a lot. Hanging out on the weekends.”
Growing up in Smithville also offered a different perspective and opportunities for her family. She said her father’s viewpoints probably shifted more liberal when he moved closer to a big city like Kansas City. Smithville also helped foster other relationships.
“Because Smithville was such a small town, you kind of just get to know those people really well and so you just kind of just stick with them,” Coder stated. “Not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s just easier to do that.”
Coder also grew up regularly attending a Christian church with her family in Parkville until she was about seven. Her family remained Christian but didn’t attend a regular church. Now she said she is agnostic, but still has a good relationship with her family.
One of her favorite hobbies is watching the NFL with her father. She also enjoys doing puzzles and playing board games during the winter. She also recently started reading for fun.
“I’ve come to realize that there is a difference between academic reading and reading for pleasure,” Coder said. “Reading for pleasure I’m reading every single word and I’m interested in it. Academic reading I’ve kind of found I’ll actually do it and get it done and can still understand if I skim and read for major points. It’s helped me academically because I’ve realized it doesn’t have to be a very time-consuming thing so then I’ll actually do the readings and learn.”
As she inches closer to graduation, Coder remains ambitious about her career goals.
“I’ve always said my dream job would be to do communications or public relations for the Chiefs,” Coder said. “I don’t want to say that that’s unattainable, but it might be. It’s a dream job for sure.”
Coder said she would like to work in professional sports, but would be open to other entertainment opportunities as well.
“I like kind of everything about communications and there’s a lot of different fields that I can go into with that. So anything where I can be around people.”
