Haley Taylor is a shining example of a student who found her passion at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. And for the past few years, the spring 2024 graduate has been paying it forward to the community through her service in Alohathon, a UH Manoa-based non-profit organization, and to future Rainbow Warriors as a tour guide with the Office of Admissions.
Discovering academic interests
Taylor began her academic journey at UH Mānoa in the midst of the pandemic, unsure of what the university would have to offer and what major to pursue. After enrolling in a few communication courses in the College of Social Sciences’ School of Communication and Information, she found that these classes resonated with her interests.
“I’ve met some really amazing faculty who really wanted me to thrive,” Taylor said. “They taught me things about new emerging social media and media connections and how vital communications is in the world we live in now.”
Inspiring future ‘Bows
Taylor was born in Tennessee and went to high school in Las Vegas, but in between spent four years residing in Hawaiʻi Kai, so she wasn’t new to living on Oʻahu. While Taylor lived on campus during her freshman year, most of her classes were online due to the pandemic. She recalled that when her parents visited, she couldn’t tell them what most of the buildings were. This is what inspired her to apply to be a campus tour guide during her sophomore year.
“By luck they hired me and I’ve loved it ever since I started—just being able to talk to prospective students and tell them what I’ve learned, what I’ve gained from it and hopefully allow them to see what kind of amazing opportunities they might not be thinking about, and how it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get your education in a place like this,” Taylor said. “It really is unlike any other.”
She continued working as a tour guide through her senior year and also became a New Student Orientation leader to welcome and connect new students and their families with the campus.
“At orientation, they’d come up to me like, ‘Hey, you’re my tour guide. I heard you talk about this. I knew I wanted to be a part of it when I came to the school.’ And that’s just a feeling you can’t really describe,” Taylor said. “It’s just like, ‘Wow, I made an impact on someone’s major life decision.’ It’s not solely because of me. It’s because of how amazing the university is.”
Giving back
Becoming a part of the UH Manoa ʻohana inspired Taylor to look for ways to give back to her campus community. In her sophomore year, she called it her “proudest moment” when she led an organization called Alohathon at UH Mānoa. They helped raise more than $27,000 for Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children.
Stepping toward the future
Taylor is headed to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to pursue a master’s degree in communications, with a focus on artificial intelligence. While she’ll be leaving the islands, at least for now, a piece of her legacy will remain at the place it all started—the admissions office. Inspired by the impact UH Mānoa had on their daughter’s academic career, Taylor’s parents made a generous contribution to revamp the welcome center in the Office of Admissions—the place many prospective students see when they first step foot on campus and where Taylor spent many memorable hours.
“To revamp this and to get this to be a fresh new happening place for prospective students to come in and see, it’s a good first look for the university,” Taylor said. “In however many years when I have a family, I can come back and show them not only the place that I love, the island that I love, but the place I spent so much of my undergraduate time in.”
Check out more stories of our UH spring graduates
When asked about what UH Mānoa has meant to her, Taylor concluded, “UH has meant everything. This has been the best four years that I could have ever imagined. I can’t imagine going to a different undergraduate program.”
—By Marc Arakaki
