The Tate Center at 9:46 in the morning on a cloudy Thursday is quite a vacant place. A chorus of muffled voices quietly echoes from the Bulldog Café nearby. We sit comfortably in two snug red chairs that we manually made face one another. Kat Shambaugh sits across from me with her laptop rested promptly in her lap. She looks comfortable in a red and blue plaid button down and khaki shorts. A pair of teal and green striped socks peak out from her navy Converse style sneakers. A large square shaped bag with the looks of a giant red and book sits at her feet. There's a certain authenticity about the bag that seems to reveal a little about who she is as an individual right off the bat. It sends the message that she is a reader, a writer, and an intellectual yet unique individual. What people carry with them all the time is quite telling of someone's personality because people carry what matters the most to them. However, even without the bag, Kat seems to carry herself with an air of strong independence and drive. She looks organized and put together. After having a long conversation with her, I found that these impressional guesses were fairly correct. Yet, I also discovered that there is even more to her story than what is seen to the eye.
"I haven't decided yet between going into Journalism or going into Neuroscience. My dream job in journalism would totally be to be a newspaper editor, or even like a publishing editor. I love editing things. As a neuroscientist, just I want to work less as like a counselor and be someone that works more with like figuring out why we have certain disorders. You know, I really think occupation wise, I all I really want to do is leave a legacy. It doesn't necessarily matter how I do that but I would love to be remembered." Caught between two career choices, Kat has diverse interests. However, her overall goal is the same for both: she wants to leave a mark on where she's been.
It is this pursuit of leaving legacy that ultimately drives her to success. Yet, what makes her different is that her "success" is all across the board. For example, when asked of what three adjectives that would describe her, one of them she included was "musically inclined". This was an attribute that I had not expected. Kat explained, "I play guitar, ukelele, guitar, drum set, and sing. And I'm in theatre, so we do musical stuff there too."
With so many talents and focuses, Kat sees her life similar to the button down she was wearing that day: plaid. Everything has it's place and she feels she is a "a very organized person." Despite the pressures of school, theatre, and music; she keeps it all firmly together and connected. However, the root of all that she does is not found in just a cup of coffee alone, but in her faith.
A key aspect of Kat is her strong belief system. As a Catholic, she is very committed to her faith. "I'm really deeply rooted in my faith and the ideals that kind of come with my faith, and those are things that even if no one else would stand up for, I would stand up for even if it's hard you know?" It is this driven mindset of standing up for what she believes in and leaving a legacy that ultimately sets Kat Shambaugh apart from the others- not just as a person, but as an authentic individual.
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