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Holly Miles: On the Go

July 28, 2014

When looking at all the activities Holly Miles has been and remains involved in at ASU, it is easy to wonder when she actually eats and sleeps.

A native of Tehachapi, Calif., Miles moved to West Texas when her dad got transferred for work, and she did her senior year at Ballinger High School. Now an ASU senior and well on her way to earning dual bachelor’s degrees in sociology and Spanish, she initially chose ASU for a Carr Scholarship and the Honors Program.

“I knew I wanted to go somewhere in Texas,” Miles said. “ASU was nearby and I liked the campus, but the Honors Program was the No. 1 reason I chose ASU. There are just so many opportunities available when you are in the Honors Program.”

Through the Honors Program, Miles has presented sociology and Spanish papers at Great Plains Honors Council conferences in Canyon, Texas, and Fort Smith, Ark., and presented original poetry at a National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) conference in New Orleans. She also participated in the NCHC Partners in the Park program at the Grand Canyon in 2013.

“I like that ASU is smaller. All my professors know me by name. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to network and more opportunities to get noticed.”

Holly Miles

“The Partners trips are service/learning oriented,” Miles said, “so we helped maintain some of the trails, we helped measure erosion for a project the park was doing, and we got to help track an invasive species of grass and calculate how far it had spread. We did a lot of exploring and we also learned a lot. The whole experience was pretty neat.”

But Miles’ favorite ASU activity to this point is her 2012 study abroad trip to Spain.

“That was awesome,” she said. “I spent a month in Avila, Spain, with nine other students. We were in school every weekday for about five hours, and then we could do what we wanted. On the weekends, we got to go to places like Madrid, Segovia and Salamanca. We got a lot of chances to practice our Spanish and we really got to explore Spain. We stayed with host families, so we got to try a lot of different food, as well.”

Back on campus, Miles spent a year as a senator in the Student Government Association, is a member of the Honors Student Association and is an Honors Program Mentor. She is also a student worker for ASU’s Community Development Initiatives, where she is project manager for the Drug Free Coalition project. She has been inducted into the Alpha Chi national honor society and Alpha Mu Gamma national foreign language honor society, and has been named to Who’s Who Among Students at American Universities and Colleges.

However, Miles is looking forward to a bit slower year as a senior now that some of her major projects are completed. In her occasional spare time, she likes to read and is currently working through the “Harry Potter” series in Spanish. She also enjoys yoga and embroidery. Scheduled to graduate in May of 2015, she plans to go to graduate school to study international affairs in the hopes of joining the Foreign Service.

Overall, she feels that the Honors Program has more than justified her decision to choose ASU.

“The internships, the conferences and all the extra trips you have the opportunity go on are things that the Honors Program offers,” Miles said, “and I’ve taken advantage of a lot of them. They have definitely fulfilled everything they promised when I signed up.”

“I probably could’ve gone to a bigger, more well-known school,” she added. “But I like that ASU is smaller. All my professors know me by name. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to network and more opportunities to get noticed.  So yeah, I think ASU is definitely the right place for me.”