“I chose this field because it is a great way to help people,” said Tatiana Sonnenberg, a communicative disorders major. “I have always had a heart for helping others.”

Tatiana Sonnenberg, a communicative disorders major, has had a “wonderful experience” at Eastern New Mexico University.

“I found it very easy to make friends at ENMU. All of my professors are very understanding and willing to go the extra mile to help me in any way,” said Tatiana, who is from Moriarty, New Mexico.

Tatiana chose to attend Eastern because it was affordable and she was offered scholarships.

“I enjoy the communicative disorders program, because it’s small and very personal. You’ll have the same teachers over and over and they’ll get to know you,” she said.

Tatiana works at the front desk for the Office of Campus Life in the Campus Union Building. She is actively involved with the BSU Christian Challenge and has participated in Eastern in Action, an annual community service event. She is also a National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association member.

She volunteers at her local church, The Porch, and babysits in her free time. Her faith is what drives her to be who she is, explaining that her “faith motivates me to do well in whatever I pursue.”

Tatiana loves hiking, reading, exercising and spending time with people she enjoys and cares about.

She encourages other students to push ahead with their studies: “Even though it is really hard, it’s worth it.”

Her favorite part about Eastern is the “friendliness of everyone on campus.”

During Tatiana’s senior year of high school, she was able to participate in a job shadowing opportunity with a speech-language pathologist. She visited homes and analyzed infant children’s speech behavior.

Tatiana “enjoys the variability” that take place in her career field, especially since she has a “passion for pediatrics as well as geriatrics. This field allows me to work with both.”

Tatiana plans to graduate with a bachelor’s in communicative disorders and a minor in health and human services in the spring of 2019.

After graduating, she would like to be employed as a speech-language pathologist and work with cranial-facial anomalies in other countries.

“I chose this field because it is a great way to help people,” she said. “I have always had a heart for helping others.”

(Written by David Aguirre)