Education is an investment which all students should make
Being able to work directly with the students of USU-CEU is one of Todd Olsen’s favorite parts of his job as director of admissions and scholarships.
He received the Outstanding Staff award for the second year in a row and said he was, “very pleased and honored it happened two years in a row.” Olsen said he was glad he is able to work with the students from day one and impact them outside of the classroom as well.
Olsen started working for CEU 21 years ago as director of high school relations and scholarships. In ’99 he was made the director of admissions and scholarships.
This archived article was written by: Mae Goss
Being able to work directly with the students of USU-CEU is one of Todd Olsen’s favorite parts of his job as director of admissions and scholarships.
He received the Outstanding Staff award for the second year in a row and said he was, “very pleased and honored it happened two years in a row.” Olsen said he was glad he is able to work with the students from day one and impact them outside of the classroom as well.
Olsen started working for CEU 21 years ago as director of high school relations and scholarships. In ’99 he was made the director of admissions and scholarships.
He has traveled around the country and the world and says his favorite memory was when he went to Egypt with Don Burge, former geology professor at CEU. Burge had studied hieroglyphics before they had gone, and while in King Tut’s tomb, he translated some of them to Olsen.
He said the trip made him very appreciative of living in the United States. It made him feel grateful for what he has.
Travel, reading, theater and music are some activities that Olsen likes to indulge in. Currently he’s working on “digitizing” his music library. “I’ve done about 3,000 CDs right now and I’m only about three-fourths done,” he said. “I’ve got around 5,000 CDs.”
Olsen said he never pursued theater until junior high school. His instructor there needed a stage manager. He said he didn’t know anything about it and the instructor said he would learn. When attending CEU, “he started hanging out with the theater students and it grew from there.”
With theater, he likes to act and also to direct. He is the director for USU-CEU’s upcoming play, “Our Town.” While he was attending CEU, Lee Johnson came to him about directing and he went with it, even donating his time for the first ten years of directing shows.
Advice that Olsen would like to give to students attending college is, “Own it! Own the experience and just enjoy this time in your life.” He likes the campus of USU-CEU because it is “small enough to expand your horizons but also big enough to become swallowed in it.”
He would like students to “realize that higher education is an investment in their future.” Many students don’t want to go to school because they don’t get any financial aid, but as he stated, education is an investment. Students invest in other things in their life, and school should be one of them.
