Hi! My name is Kylie Hoover and I'm a 21 year old photographer, graphic designer, and student studying Media & Entertainment with an emphasis in Music Business at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. I pride myself on keeping my values/balance of my autonomy, growth, friendship, creativity, and fun in my life and career endeavors. I'm also the founder/contributor to the online publication Bell Music Magazine! Feel free to email with any questions or bookings; kyliehphotos@gmail.com.
Belmont Experience Reflection:
Before I became a student at Belmont during my sophomore year of college, I first was a student at Parsons School of Design for my freshman year of college. I had pretty much wanted to live in New York City my entire life because it was only a few hours of a train ride from home, and my cousin and her wife lived there and I used to spend summers in their penthouse. So when it came time to choose a college, I knew where I wanted to be, but I didn’t fully know what I wanted to do. I ended up choosing Parsons, a small liberal arts school, in the middle of Manhattan, and studying photography. The college/New York was comfortable in some ways, but new and challenging in other ways. I really enjoyed being around people with the same ideological beliefs as me, I enjoyed visiting places I had been as a child, visiting my cousins, and doing art/seeing shows. However, I really disliked only doing art, living with awful roommates, feeling unsafe in the city, and not having my car to commute.
This combination led me to transfer to Belmont the year after and study music business/entertainment. Belmont had different comfortabilities in that I was enjoying my studies, had friends/a community of similar interests, had my own homey apartment, and I still got to do my art and see more shows. But, I had never been to Nashville or even Tennessee until after I committed to Belmont, and I am not religious, so I knew this experience of Belmont would expose me to new cultures, beliefs, and people.
Through my time at Belmont, I’ve learned of new religions, beliefs, experiences, and ways of living. One of the first classes I took here was my Understanding the Bible class, and even though I was raised non-religious (pretty anti-Christian actually) I loved taking that class, learning new perspectives, and most of all I loved my professor and my peers in the class. In my childhood I never had a positive experience with Christians, everyone who was Christian in my family was extremely hateful and disrespectful to those who didn’t believe the same as them, and I never once saw them go to church services. But my Understanding the Bible professor was so welcoming of everybody and their beliefs, much like the students and faculty of Belmont, and that was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
My overall experience at Belmont enhanced my understanding of the complex nature of the world because it allowed me to break out of the norms and comfort I sought after my whole life, and I’ve been able to learn so much by building relationships with those different to me. I mainly learned that stereotypes are not always correct and that it can be extremely harmful to generalize a group of people when you're judging them based on what they might believe and not how they carry themselves as people of those beliefs. In the future, I hope to explore more places, companies, and communities in order to continue to extend my knowledge of the world and interact with new and different cultures and perspectives.
Belmont has improved my overall wellness as an individual because of their dedication to building community, making connections, and having staff with relevant experiences. The way that Belmont builds community through group experiences such as towering traditions week, day to dream festival, and it must be Wednesday, benefits my social and emotional wellness. I especially love the designated day we get off classes for the day to dream festivals so we can enjoy our community.
Similarly, Belmont allows students to build connections by hosting wellcore seminars, and tight-knit classes that are small enough that you can get to know everyone around you. Wellcore seminars I’ve attended in the past have helped me connect with people involved with Universal Music Group and past Disney College Program alums, as well as benefit my cultural and occupational wellness.
Finally, Belmont’s widely experienced staff provides relevant industry knowledge to all students, and I have made great connections with most of my past professors and I appreciate them academically and personally. I’ve even been able to secure my first music industry internship because of a connection with one of my professors, they influence my intellectual and occupational wellness.
