Jordyn Book is a passionate social worker that works vigorously to impact the lives of others. Having graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor's degree in Social Work, she has always known she has wanted to help change people’s lives, and help those who are most at risk. When she is not at work, Jordyn dedicates time to her passion of dance and coaches the CU Club Dance team, looking to have the same impact on those young women as her coaches had on her.

Read more about HERstory

Tell us about yourself, where are you from, and where you went to school.

I was born and raised in Greeley, Colorado, and went to Greeley West High School, which is also where I started my dance career. I attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins for college and earned a degree in social work with a minor in criminal justice. 

Dance plays a huge part in your life, how did you end up in it?

I started dancing at the age of 6 and have been doing it ever since. I started coaching the CU Club dance team in 2018, but before that, I did studio dance in Greeley and then danced for the Greeley West High School team. Then In college, I danced for CSU on their Golden Poms team. From there, I dove deep into coaching, and it's been awesome ever since then.

Tell us about why you got into coaching dance, you know, because I know sometimes it's a difficult transition to go from participating and being a dancer to teaching and coaching it.

Yeah, going from participating and then teaching was a big learning curve and something that I had to learn to do. I use a lot of tools from past coaches to then form it into my coaching style. I've been able to use my past influences and my past coaches to be like, okay these are the tools that I want to use, and this is how I want to run a team. So it has been a big journey and a big learning experience.

But I also got into coaching because I didn't want to give up dance and still wanted to be a part of the dance community. I wanted to impact young girls the way my coaches impacted me and kind of shaped me into the person I am today. I feel like dance is so much more than just performing on the stage, performing for others, and creating a show. It's having discipline, being able to talk to people, and having skills that you can bring into the workplace and school. 

I feel like I was able to be disciplined and motivated when I was in dance. I worked many jobs throughout college, and I wouldn't have been able to do that if my coaches in high school didn't teach me time management and how to be productive. With practice, school work, and the responsibility of my job, it was important to stay on top of it and make sure I was ready for the next day.

How did you find your path to your chosen field and your job?

I was lucky enough to figure it out in high school. I knew I wanted to become a social worker but I didn't know if I knew the term back then. I knew that I wanted to help people, and I knew that talking to people and helping people came very naturally to me, so I knew that I wanted to in some way help others, and help to change people's lives in the best way that I could.

When I was looking into schools, I noticed that CSU had a social work-specific program, their BSW program. I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do. I immediately enrolled in that program and pretty much started my journey into social work. From there I didn't know what social work was until I got into the social work classes, and I was very informed. I feel because of those classes, I have a better understanding of the impact I can make on people and how inclusive we need to be when treating others to help somebody.

I also wanted to work with people that were at risk, and so that's kind of how the criminology degree came in. I wanted to know a little bit more about why people get in trouble. What leads them to get in trouble? What trauma have they been through and what life experiences have they had to influence the path that they have taken? That kind of curiosity led me to social work and where I am now.

When you were in high school, what challenges did you face that might have stopped you from pursuing post-secondary education?

So college was always an expectation growing up. I didn’t have a choice.

I was never presented with the opportunity to not go to college, and so what I was working for was to go to college and make sure that post-secondary education was a thing. I do appreciate having that push and having that driving motivation from my parents to be like you are going to do this because, at the end of the day, it will only set you up for success. I feel like I have had a lot more opportunities because of my post-secondary education, and not just to say that not having an education you can't have a lot of opportunities. But with the career path that I wanted to go into, I needed that education and I feel like that has set me up for success in my future with the career path that I've chosen. 

But as far as challenges in school, I think school came a lot harder for me. I had to work in all my classes and study. School never came naturally to me, and so I had to dive deep into studying and figuring out what works for me, and then managing dance and school was a really hard balance while still having a social life and that growth that you're trying to go through in high school. But I would say one of the challenges that I had was just learning my study style, and how I would manage everything else around me while still working hard at school.

What resources did you utilize in your time in school that played a role in your success?

I feel like in college a lot of the resources I used were other teammates, other classmates, and trying to finish projects and retain knowledge, study, and ask for help. I would oftentimes use professors during study hours during the professor's office hours to go ask any questions if I needed help. 

I did have a social work advisor. She helped guide me on what classes I should take and how to navigate through the social work degree, especially with having the practicum course, and then the internship at the end of our 4 years. She was a big factor in deciding what classes you should take and in what order to take them. At the end of the social work degree, you have to complete a 450-hour internship course. You are pretty much at your internship working almost full time, 20 to 30 hours per week to graduate. She helped me navigate through all of that.

So the internship part of social work is completing that internship of 450 hours at the end of the semester, and then, you know, doing a big project on it and incorporating all the social work skills that you have learned basically throughout the 3 1/2 years into that program. 

It gave me hands-on experience and real-life knowledge of what a real social worker looked like day to day. I'm so thankful for that time, 450 hours is a lot, and working for free is a lot. However, I would not trade that experience for anything, because I feel like that gave me a true understanding of what social workers do, day in and day out.

During my internship, no day was ever the same. I was meeting with clients, helping them face to face, and practicing my social work skills, and I felt like that prepared me to step into the workforce with ease. It's never easy but I felt like I was able to step into it right away and have that confidence because of the internship. I would not trade that internship for anything.

What memories do you have of being a college student? What challenged you and what surprised you?

Oh, I have a lot of memories of being a college student. I think being a part of the CSU community was fantastic. Being a part of the dance team was great, it made me feel more engaged and involved in the CSU community. Going to college is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I would go back in a heartbeat because you're learning so much about who you are as a person and learning to be on your own. You're learning all those life skills that you need as an adult but you're doing it in a way that everybody is learning the same thing. 

Everybody around you is learning all the same things you are and you're going through this big journey in life together, and it's just so beautiful. I would encourage anybody to go to college because you really learn a lot about who you are.

In college, you also learn a lot about what you want to do, and what you don't want to do. It's an opportunity to learn different career paths. If you want to be a business major, you can try that out. If that's not your thing then you can learn to be an anthropologist. If that's also not your thing you have a big opportunity to really figure out what life path you want to go on. 

What do you wish students knew when they went to college?

I would say something along the lines of being confident. You can make a difference. I wish I would have known just to be confident. I know that's very plain and not anything special by any means. But I just think it's okay to speak up and be a voice for somebody else that may not have a voice. Being a white woman, I wish somebody would have told me to use my privilege to speak up for somebody else and be confident in doing so. You have the chance to do so by going to college, getting an education, and then advocating for others after.

Talk about what it was like being the oldest daughter to leave for college.

My sister and I are almost 5 years apart and so I graduated high school and graduated college significantly before she was there. Since my sister and I are very far apart in age, I had to do a lot of things without somebody by my side to kind of walk me through it. It was a lot of pressure to go off to college on your own. I had support from my family and guidance from them which I really appreciate, but it was a lot of pressure as well. After college, I needed to get into the workforce right away because my family was helping my sister get through high school and get into college. I needed to step into the workforce as soon as possible so she could have the same support that I received. 

It's a lot to kind of carve that path and I didn't have the opportunity to see someone else go through it and learn from their mistakes. I was kind of learning college as I went, hoping I did the right thing and made all the right decisions to make the right life path for myself. Sometimes as the oldest, it can be really challenging not having that guidance from the other sibling but in the end, it all worked out. 

I hope that I was a role model for my sister. I hope that she was able to see what I did, even though we're so far apart, and then grow from it, and be better. That's all I can hope for. But it's challenging at first, it's not easy being the first one, interviewing for your first job, and going through all of it. It can be really scary at first. But in the end, it all worked out.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would say don't sweat the small stuff and keep pushing forward. Everything is meant to be the way it's meant to be. We're all meant to go through different challenges in our own way and different struggles, and in the end that will only make us stronger.

I feel like I use a lot of that self-talk, and that’s how I work with people. To this day we're all meant to go through different struggles, whatever the struggles are, but we can and always have an opportunity to come out on the other end. We always have an opportunity to be better. I will get out on the other side, and I will be stronger for it, and I can learn from it. I still remind myself that, like I'm supposed to go through this hard thing, and I'm going to be better, and I'm going to learn from it the next time and so I think that’s the advice I would give myself.

I also asked one of my coworkers who was retiring when I first started my career for some advice. I asked her what advice she would give me since I'm just starting my career. I've got like 29 years left. Tell me what helps you. She said, “I don't fit my personal life into work”.That has always been very impactful because I feel like a lot of us, myself included, always think work is everything like we have to work 24/7, but that's not always important. We always have to remember to take care of ourselves too.

In order for you to be a good social worker, no matter what your job title is manager or not, in order for you to do that you have to be able to take care of yourself. If you’re not taking care of yourself, you can't be the best person to then influence other students or other clients. I think that's really important because I was never taught that going into social work. Nobody ever tells you the emotional drain it takes until you're already going down that drain and working with people and working with students, which can be draining. I also feel like some advice I would give to people going into social work is to practice self-care and practice doing things that make you happy because some days we just need that.

Who is your biggest influence and why?

That is easy. My dad would be my biggest influence. Hands down. He's so passionate and caring, and he really truly believes in the growth of another person and that we can really impact people. I feel like he has impacted so many students across his career. He was a fifth-grade elementary school teacher for 30+ years and just recently retired. To this day he still has kids asking him to give their graduation diplomas at the ceremony. So he's going to do that again this year.

He's been my biggest inspiration because he has impacted so many people. He has truly loved what he's done for the last 30 years and has kept that love for teaching the whole time. I'm starting to tear up a little bit talking about it, but he's been my biggest influence. It is not always easy to love something that much for 30 years. 

If someone were to tell the legend of Jordyn Book, what do you hope they would say?

I would want them to say that she made a positive impact. That can mean so many different things. It can mean being kind to people. It can mean to encourage people to make changes. It could mean being a nice person and smiling at people. It could be so many different things, but I would hope that they would say she made a difference. She really made a difference in her life, and that's the reaction I would want.