Blog Prompt #1: Introducing Hunter Harper

My name is Hunter Harper. I went to North Central College for my undergraduate degree in journalism. I grew up in a very tiny town out in the country with my parents and two younger sisters. My parents grew up in Naperville and went to Naperville North High School, so coming back to the Naperville area for college was a no-brainer for me. I was familiar with the area and really felt at home while attending North Central. In my junior year of undergrad, I started working for a company called Dogs Love Running! It started out as just a job to pay for school, but after a year of working there, I realized that the animal world was a world I wanted to live in. So after I graduated with my bachelor's degree in journalism, I decided that I was no longer interested in becoming a journalist. Because I didn't really have a plan after graduation as far as landing a full-time job, I decided to continue my education to get my master's degree in professional leadership. My dream is to start my own dog walking business down south and I believe that this degree will really help me with my leadership skills. Besides being a dog walker, I am also one of the office managers for the company. I wanted to learn some of the behind-the-scenes tasks in order to learn even more about the dog walking world. As an office manager I deal with conflict between clients on a daily basis and going through this professional leadership program is really helping me learn the dos and don'ts of dealing with the public and how to really handle myself in a managerial role. One thing I am very interested in is the animal rights laws. To me, animals are people too and seeing someone treat them as anything less is just heartbreaking. I was overjoyed when a law was passed that specified that animal abusers would be put on a list much like a list of sex offenders. We need to be the voice for those who don't have one. I look forward to meeting everyone!