The Shocking Truth About College Admissions in 2024

[0:00]  who are the people making decisions about your applications into higher education well today we sit down with Melody Ferguson the dean of admissions at Pacific Lutheran University we're going to be talking about the new expectations of students in 2024 how the landscape of admissions is changing the changing landscape of how we can meet individual students where they are the mindset as a leader that comes along with that the willingness to fail and so much more I can't wait for you guys to check out this episode with Melody Ferguson this episode of the heart and hustle podcast is an absolute Banger because we listen to the mindset and the unique perspective of a leader in higher education today and Melody absolutely crushes this check out this episode are you seeing any other Trends about this generation as they come into school that maybe the university has to adjust to I

[0:49]  think we all have to right uh I think this generation of students I Al I agree I think they're going to change the world in like the most amazing ways because they have developed I love what you just said kind of superpowers that that we just don't don't have or maybe didn't come as easily or came much later for us um than have come for this generation and for the generation that's coming uh but yeah I think we've had to really adjust how we think on campus we're a small school and so you know we really want students to come here and critically question and um think about having tough conversations in this safe space so that they can exit here and and you know ultimately change the world in some ways and so that has kind of shaped it it used to be something we had to push and now it's something where

[1:36]  students come in eager and excited to really engage in those like tough conversations um once they feel comfortable and supported and like they belong all right everybody welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm incredibly excited because I have Melody Ferguson here with me today now Melody welcome to the show thank you so much for being here thanks for having me I'm excited to be here so Melody why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself because today's conversation is really going to be around the focus of higher education

[2:23]  and the changing landscape also the expectations that our current students in today's world of 2024 have for the higher education experience yeah um my name is Melody Ferguson like you said uh I'm dean of admission at Pacific Lutheran University we call ourselves PLU um in Tacoma Washington and I've been here for about 12 years actually um but working in higher education for about 23 so uh mostly in the Pacific Northwest um but at a variety of different colleges and uh you know what you laid out is a lot to talk about but I'm excited to have this conversation yeah I mean let's kind of dive right into it I mean so over the last let's call it four years right it's 2024 at the time of recording this we all went through a global pandemic but that changed the expectation that we had for

[3:11]  experiencing higher education but also what's needed to kind of get into the space why don't you kind of talk about the current landscape and then let's kind of see kind of where we can take this conversation today yeah that's great uh you know 2020 was an interesting year for us in higher education I mean for everyone obviously uh but I think it made us really step back and think about how we admit students how we enroll students how we retain students um also about how we educate students so sometimes you know in times of of stress you actually get a moment to think about what you want to do in your future and I think that happened both in higher education but also in families um and so I think you know they were in houses together they were spending more time together and

[3:58]  families have become these these partners and so as we kind of have come out of that I think some of the things that have changed especially from like when I applied to college uh you know the expectations are a lot higher in terms of your communication your authenticity um what they're going to get from their experience uh I think those are things that they're now just expecting uh those aren't the things that we hope to do because um we're better than someone else they just expect those uh so I think that's one of them they also really want flexibility uh in in maybe the way they're educated or the way you're offering admission um they want you to kind of meet them where they're at in some ways and so I think for us we've had to really rethink uh everything that we do uh in the last four years I was

[4:47]  having a conversation with another leader in higher ed and we were talking about and this is perfect for this increased family engagement and involvement in the admissions process and this was an interesting topic which was student debt today often is looked at as being transferred into family debt yeah why do we have that perspective in today's world you know I actually think that that is a good thing um because I think it probably always has been in some way but now I think it's just more top of mind it's something that's a lot easier to talk about uh I think some families aren't talking about it at all yet some are having these really great conversations earlier about the investment in college and so uh yeah I think you have to family engagement for us is so important and we've really seen families as partners in this process and

[5:36]  we work with students you know when they're high school juniors High School seniors as they're deciding to pick where they're going to college and for many young people that's kind of their first mature adult and I'll put those in quotes I have a high school senior um decision uh to make and yet they're not making it fully alone it's not their first independent adult decision to make they're making it with a support system and so that might be their family or their high school counselor or their aunt or a family friend um but one of the things we're having to talk about much earlier than we ever had to talk about it is financial aid scholarships understanding student debt um in ways that help break down I think the anxiety inducing nature that it can

[6:24]  cause in young people there's so many young people that I think aren't even applying to college because they think think uh college debt is so much more uh than it really is or that it's going to be insurmountable for them uh when they graduate and so you know I think part of our job now in an admission office is educating families high school counselors anyone I that is willing to listen to me that high school debt or or excuse me college debt doesn't have to be insurmountable that it can be very manageable uh and that most students are actually gradu ating with less debt than they think um and so that's been something we've had to really prioritize in early conversations where we used to talk about it after they've been admitted yeah I love the fact that we've seen a transformation from when I'm just

[7:13]  going to throw something out there it's like you know college back in the day used to kind of feel like it was this organization that needed to sell you a dream of come to college pick a major take on debt and you'll be fine one day sit at the feet of the faculty and you'll learn an opport opportunities will be created for you what I hear you saying is you're having to take more of like a consultative expert perspective of saying let's make sure you have all the right information so you can make a good decision that feels very that feels a lot more I would say harmonious to the understanding of like what these individual students and families are getting themselves into and what they commit to and the return on their investment yeah I think families are sometimes surprised when we even tell them it looks like Po is not a good Financial fit for you right because we can't be everything to every student um but that's we've now seen our job not

[8:03]  just getting them to PLU but getting them somewhere so if it's not PLU let's talk about other options because we're all kind of built a little bit differently but yeah there is an expectation that you know we're going to help them make an informed decision and that's interesting right uh you know and what we've learned is you can't just talk to the 17y old or the 16y old or even the 22y old about that um you need to involve the people around them because they want to have a trusted advisor but a lot of times that trusted adviser also doesn't know this is very different than when their parents went to school a lot of our students are first generation so their parents didn't even go to college and so they want to help their young people make an informed decision about

[8:50]  should they go to college should they go into the workforce should they do an apprenticeship but they don't know how to navigate that experience either and so we do try to lead our our conversations not about PLU but about you know just College admission 101 uh you know financial aid 101 uh so that we can get them some proper knowledge some proper language make them feel confident a little bit um and then hopefully they'll kind of navigate that with us through the through the two years one year however long they're they're looking at a college but yeah you have to bring them along yeah you really do because you can't take advice from somebody who's never been in your situation before you can but it's a recipe for disaster and I would hate to ask my parents like what do you think I should do for financial aid if they never even went through that exercise with everything that's changing I mean

[9:37]  even this morning I would love to know your opinion about the impacts of social media on that perception of financial aid and student loans I woke up this morning and one of the first things that I saw on my social media feed was this girl who was saying I took on $80,000 worth of debt back in the day I've been paying minimum payments for 10 years I now owe $76,000 total I paid 120 into this so how do you feel about that social media sphere kind of tainting the idea of college admissions and student debt because it's got to be a really tough thing to fight against it is and I I would have a lot of questions for that young person about like where did you go to college um because can you do that sort of uh so in terms of when a student fills out the FAFSA or in our state if

[10:24]  if you're undocumented you can f the Wasa um the amount of loan of a student can get from the federal government in their freshman year is is generally $5500 um that times four does not equal $180,000 or whatever that was um that you just said so it's hard to imagine with the regul regulations which are better than they used to be so also timing matters um how that can happen but you are able to take out parent loans and private loans um which are generally also co-signed by a parent or family member so this is where as you mentioned earlier the the debt burden is not just on the student for for a lot of families it could be on the parents on the family member on whoever it is

[11:12]  that's investing in that young person and I do think there's a point where maybe that isn't the right fit College because it's just too much debt um but the average student I think I looked this up a couple weeks ago for four I'm Looking talking about fouryear colleges so it's going to be last at a two-year College or technical school or apprenticeship program um but they're taking out usually it's around 20 to $25,000 in student debt for a four-year bachelor's degree that should increase your earning potential over time um and and we're having to have that conversation a lot more than we used to it's not just about go to college and learn um now we have to really talk about that return on investment uh what does it mean for you it's delayed gratification which I think is also hard for young people um but there's a lot of benefits to a college education but I

[12:02]  think can those scary stories happen yes but they are the they are the minority story they're not the story that is happening for the majority of college students across the United States and what's great is Google's made things really easy or Bing or whatever search platform you use um you can Google average student debt for and you can put in the college that you're looking at and it will tell you because those are things we're required to report um as a part of our accreditation and all of those things so it's used to be kind of hidden and it's very easy to uncover but I found for lots of families they don't even realize how easy that information is to find I want to I want to take this into a little bit of a different direction cuz you mentioned earning potential which I feel like is

[12:49]  incredibly important to talk about when we talk about the landscape and once again this is the lens that it's been informed upon me I saw a statistic the other day that said 49% of college graduates are working jobs that take a GED to be working in okay that's a little bit of a disconnect so let's talk about the importance of picking a major that has return on investment and gives you higher earning potential rather than just kind of floating down the path of higher education why is that so important the world that we live in today you know I truly believe that higher education does a few things for people but you have to also it's not just higher education doing it for you you have to use higher education to do things for you as well has to kind of go like you have to go in and you have to be a little proactive so there's a couple things that I think about that I

[13:36]  technically think you could major in anything in college and still get a great job but not if you just let higher education happen for you like if you're just kind of skating through but I think it's about finding a place where the learning is really important so you're learning those skills that you then learn how to put on a resume and how to talk about an interview so as cheesy as it sounds I think college is this place where you get to become your adult self in a little bit of a safer environment if you go straight from high school to the workforce you're an adult in a day right yeah uh whereas College gives you this time to figure out who you want to be to teach yourself how to communicate um to be in a new environment away from home where you're having to like navigate being with other people and uh faculty

[14:25]  who you know these kind of different personalities than Maybe used to so you're growing as an individual you're growing your critical thinking skills you're growing your communication skills living with a random roommate taught me more than almost going to college did don't don't tell my college but I mean learning how to navigate living with someone in a very small space and and um and and not being best friends right uh there's these interesting things that happen in college that are hard to explain to a family but I value those so much much because I was a first generation college student and I know how much those things have how they've shaped who I am as a leader now as a as a professional but I do think you can't just go to class and go home so what you

[15:13]  have to do is no matter what major you have to find an internship while you're in college maybe you study abroad um so that you develop a cultural understanding a global understanding you um do a research project you talk to your faculty about summer experiences that maybe um are paid summer experiences like you have to have that applied element of your learning I think so that when you graduate you're able to speak in an interview about what you'll bring to a company or an organization or whatever it may be but there's also jobs that require a college degree uh so you can't become a you know a a a nurse for the most part without doing some sort of college education a social worker anything that has kind of a license

[16:00]  right you're going to probably have to go to some type of school um but even things like becoming a you know the number one thing I hear from young people still is they want to be doctors and dentists and lawyers um and all of those require even more school than just that first four-year degree so you know there's some things where if those are your dreams it's important to start thinking now about how do you get to college but also how do you afford College how do you make it manageable the experiences that you talk about are exactly what what was most valuable in my higher education process was exposure to different people exposure to different ideas exposure to having to adjust your lifestyle that it wasn't just about the Keenan show but it was about living with a roommate being able to adjust holding myself accountable to show up on time for classes and Mom and Dad weren't there with me and so it was a safe

[16:47]  environment to grow up and so I'm so glad that you touched on that do you think that there's a little bit of a difference that we experience today because of coming out of the pandemic we all were forced into a I would say chapter of Our Lives that was relyant on isolation digital education digital interaction are you seeing any type of changes with students who are now maybe having a little tough time coming out of their shell in those social environments that we just talked about yeah definitely and I think every year it's um getting a little bit better uh but you know it's we're used to entertaining ourselves in a lot of ways and um you know I used to say that um when I would recruit students to PLU or to other institutions I would send them an email and I would say the first moment you're bored don't

[17:37]  turn inside Open Your Door walk down the hallway because someone else is bored too uh because I think not enough people talked about how the transition to college is actually hard uh you know you've given up this whole High School experience where maybe you were very involved in a club you had your friend group you had your routine and you're literally pressing the reset button on friendships on experience um and so I don't think that was talked about enough what I like right now is yes students are it's so easy to pick up your phone or watch something on Netflix or even FaceTime home right which is great you can stay more connected but you have to get out of your dorm room and try to experience the life that you've chosen this college life because like you and I

[18:24]  were just talking about it's those moments that actually help you grow so much more so you know we've definitely tried a lot of things here at po to make sure we're getting people connected very early around things that matter to them so that maybe it feels more comfortable where they live or where they go to school um to try to get them kind of outside of that bubble uh but it's definitely a little bit harder than it used to be the good news is they're so much better about talking about kind of their mental health and what they're feeling and um expressing those emotions than maybe we were prior to the pandemic yeah I I really admire this generation because they were forced to be adaptable they all developed the skill set of being adaptable and adjusting to new environments now when we get to our higher education phase it's time to lean into those things I was um born in

[19:13]  Seattle so we talked about that in our previous conversation I grew up in Detroit so I had multiple friends because I went to multiple schools there when I went to college I went to a school called Coastal Carolina down in Myrtle Beach or Conway South Carolina knew nobody had to reinvent myself meet meet new friends did that again when I moved to Las Vegas and went to a UNLV here so that skill set of being able to uproot yourself and put yourself in a new social environment build new friends and kind of restart is something that I've leaned into as a superpower of mine later in life and I think getting outside of our comfort zone is so important and being able to have conversations about mental health and how those things make us feel uncomfortable is a skill set that this generation has that even my generation did not but what are some of the other elements of their willingness to have those

[20:00]  conversations about mental health are you seeing any other Trends about this generation as they come into school that maybe the university has to adjust to I think we all have to right uh I think this generation of students I Al I agree I think they're going to change the world in like the most amazing ways because they have developed I love what you just said kind of superpowers that that we just don't don't have or maybe didn't come as easily or came much later for us um than have come for this generation and for the generation that's coming uh but yeah I think we've had to really adjust how we think on campus we're a small school and so you know we really want students to come here and critically question and um think about having tough conversations in this safe space so that they can exit here and and

[20:49]  you know ultimately change the world in some ways and so that has kind of shaped it it used to be something we had to push and now it's something where students come in eager and excited to really engage in those like tough conversations um once they feel comfortable and supported and like they belong and so um you know I think in in a lot of ways it's really good for us to be pushed by this generation but it is something where even we an admission you know we've instituted some things to help make admission a lot more flexible and every now and then you know we get a comment from the community or for someone who went to college a long time ago like haven't you made it too easy and I'm like no like these students have worked really hard they've earned getting into college but they have social media telling them they can't get in or they can't afford it we didn't

[21:37]  have that right and so to get sometimes them over you know some of those those self that self-doubt um you know we've had to change how we do things to make sure they feel welcome and like they belong here have you ever had any challenges with thinking with that lens of curiosity because what got us here is not going to get us there I shared a statistic that said higher education year-over-year seems to be shrinking at about 6% online education seems to be growing at 20% so thinking about the lens of curiosity as a leader and as your team at you at PLU how are you guys thinking about what the future is going to look like have you had to kind of break any mindsets to be flexible and Nimble to meet this next generation or what's that been like yeah I mean I think we're not doing it perfectly there's things we still need to work on but

[22:25]  uh we have I think leadership ship AB you know my the college President here is big on Innovation and being unconventional and so I think I work in an environment where I feel safe you know people don't always like this word but to fail um you know I I feel like it's okay to try things and as long as I'm doing it with the right intentions and with a a goal in mind and within our kind of mission of access that it's okay for me to like try things um which is not how I've been in every you know job I've been in and so that has allowed us I think to be curious to try things to ask really tough questions of ourselves and then to move forward with little or small changes especially in admission uh

[23:14]  I think as a university we're still thinking about how do we provide we're a very traditional campus right residential in person um but we've also become a little bit more local we have a lot more commuter students than we used to have uh and so that has changed our demographic and the needs of our students uh so we might think about shorten semesters we might think about more hybrid learning uh we thought we we now have part-time Pathways which is something you know we were a full-time you have to be a full-time student here um but to accommodate our students and so I think the environment that I'm in uh is really important and I would say to anyone out there if you're feeling like you're constantly being pushed up against a wall about your ideas either find a place where you aren't or

[24:01]  find ways to navigate that because I do think when you're given a space to try um that's the best environment to be in as long as you're someone willing to change and evolve does this culture that you're talking about right now bleed down into how your staff communicates with the students about willingness to fail forward yeah I think it does we uh have recently been doing you know some training getting ready for the school year and uh it's been fun to listen to that people really value working in an office that allows them to to talk to students about fit very honestly um to talk about options very honestly to not feel like they're just having to push getting a student here um you know we really want them to go to college

[24:49]  Washington State as a whole has a pretty low post-secondary attainment rate and so you know we feel it's part of our job since we mostly are Regional College to help move that forward even if it means them not coming here maybe they started a community college or maybe a technical college is better for them but we have a great state need Grant and we really want students to use it because not enough are taking advantage of this financial resource um that's available you know just in our backyard so yeah going back to the element and you weave it in so perfectly the ability to lean into an expert to make better decisions in itself is something that I feel like the world needs a little bit more of these days everything seems so salesy salesy salesy pitchy especially in spaces where we need expert guidance

[25:36]  about how we can make good decisions but imagine how powerful it would be if you had a student who sat across the table from Melody and her family and his family or her family and you said this isn't the right step for you right now but maybe you could go take this alternate path then they came back to the university and graduated from PLU Imagine The Experience because they weren't sold a dream but they were given expert information about how to make a right decision so powerful yeah and I think it's teaching how to have tough conversations too um you know most of our staff have gone through college and I think you're getting a little bit of that there but we don't we don't want them to just have easy conversations with families it's sometimes having that tough conversation uh we find we actually have that happen so we have families that will uh go somewhere else and then

[26:24]  transfer back or oh my friend ended up somewhere else but they really enjoyed learning about your school so I'm applying so you know word of mouth is is your best recruiter sometimes and I think if you're doing the right thing and you're building trust and you're doing it an authentic and honest way that's only going to help you in the long run have you honed those skills over the years in being in higher education or what what was the before picture and what was the after picture or have you always been this expert who's willing to help everybody maybe I'm an oldest right so you know some of it comes with maybe birth order um uh yeah I don't I I don't totally know I had a I was lucky enough to have a great first supervisor who even in my right out of college very professionally

[27:12]  immature kind of way um trusted me to to move things forward and allowed me to try things and kind of figure out that it didn't work myself versus just telling me it wasn't going to work out um and I think that is something I always have leaned back on and saying I want to be that type of leader for people too um I don't want to be the person that just tells them what to do but I really want to kind of Empower them to do that so uh yeah I think it's having been in really good environments where I've learned that that's how I thrive as a staff person and wanting to to make that in the culture of of the place that I get to to manage or lead I mean you you definitely embody that and so I wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of talk about that because it's so impressive to sit across from

[27:58]  somebody who has such a pivotal role in educating this future generation about making good decisions so they can put themselves in a position for opportunity and I feel like education in itself today is kind of an enablement platform that gives you the platform to create the safe space so you can create opportunities for yourself later and that's super powerful um I'd like to talk a little bit about how quickly the world is moving in contrast to some of our spaces like higher education how are you thinking about technology like AI as an example and how is it kind of impacting your view of the landscape work but also higher education in general yeah I'm trying to see it as a tool as something that can be used to enhance what we do or allow us to create efficiencies so that maybe we could be freed up to think bigger thoughts and be more Curious you know sometimes you get

[28:45]  so bogged down in your day-to-day work that you don't feel like you have the time to um Envision a future uh you're living so much in the moment so currently that's where I'm trying to be is very kind of open minded and um not see it as something that's coming for our jobs or going to replace things or going to make all of our students turn in plagiarized you know papers or anything like that I'm really trying to see it as a tool we can use to do a lot of what we've been talking about um to find the time to change a little bit a little bit quicker to evolve a little bit faster um to to be able to predict some things that we can't predict right now and uh you know and and layer it on to all the data that we have all the

[29:34]  knowledge that we have about our students to also help us communicate more individually um you know students kind of want their questions answered their interests addressed which I think is the wave of the future right we we all shop that way we our music is curated for us um you know they want college to be that way but we don't right now have the technology to to do that at the rate that they want and so you know that's kind of where I think we're going is we're going to be able to communicate with students almost oneon-one individually about what they're looking for if we can figure out how to tap into these resources um in a in a school like ours we're never going to lose the person touch right we a small school that's kind of Why students come here is they're known they get to have a voice

[30:22]  um you know we watch them come into school and we watch them graduate and uh celebrate that and so um how can we do that but also kind of allow us to be more individualized in the way that we're doing things so I think it's still super new but those are some of the ways I'm currently thinking about new technology yeah I think uh we have to once again I'm going use this word intentionally look at technology like artificial intelligence through the lens of curiosity because it's very human based and very tried and true for us to be like that's terrible or that's great right both sides of the camp but somewhere in the middle is where the answer is um but also technology has to be an accelerator for us never a human replacement and that's where I feel like I get a little bit worried when I see the evangelists or the startup or the CEOs of these companies talking about AI

[31:11]  is going to be the answer to everything when there are just things that we cannot replace the human ability to sit across the table from an expert and you know a leader like you you can't replace with AI but having those tough conversations like you talked about and being able to help people make good decisions is something that I TR truly intuitively trust you have the ability to do but not maybe chat GPT at this point in time yeah but with a better name for the scholarship I'm trying to do for sure yeah exactly there you go it but uh but yeah I I think that's something you know we try to say here is we're not a no office um so you know we don't start with no uh we like to start with well and then and kind of you know see where that goes um as as a way to stay open to things let's talk a little bit about

[32:01]  kind of the future of higher education so you have a huge impact on not only your organization but how individuals in the future are going to view higher education what are there some of the things that you're hoping for over like let's say the next five years to see across the landscape of higher education and maybe how students approach higher education as well you know one of the things I really and would love to see is is more students seeing higher education as an option for them uh I'm always surprised surprised at the number of young people with great grades who have done well in high school have pushed themselves who don't even think they're going to get admitted to college uh and and I think direct admission is becoming more of a conversation nationally and and we're doing that here and I do hope that shifts some of the conversation

[32:48]  there are maybe 5% of colleges that are highly selective um but the rest of us actually admit many more students than we think and and also offer a lot more scholarship ship so one thing I would like to see is that they're not choosing the workforce because they think they have to um that they're really choosing the workforce or college based on the path they see for themselves the goals they have for their future um not because some hurdle that they've put in front of themselves is standing in front of them uh and and I think that's a tough thing I don't know if it'll happen in five years but I would really love to see that I also think that you know we're going to have to become a college that does think a little bit about how we offer our courses the structure of our courses maybe at The Graduate level first you know I think there's ways to

[33:36]  do this in phases that feel comfortable um but I think we have to with what this generation is looking for and then I'm already starting to to look at generation Alpha which is the next Generation that's coming uh to figure out how we're going to have to evolve for them because we've had to do a lot for for Gen Z and um and I think all for good reason I think all in the right ways and I think we have if we're going to if we're going to continue to grow if we're going to continue to enroll students we have to constantly be thinking about the Next Generation and their needs and not being complacent in the place that we are right now I mean I feel like that is an amazing place for us to be able to put a bow on today's episode um you know just demonstrating the true example of heart and hustle I

[34:24]  feel like it's a perfect intersection where you sit as a leader in higher education today because you understand what it truly takes to put yourself in places for opportunity but also you're helping families and students alike make good decisions and that takes a lot of heart in order for you to be able to kind of sit across a table and be willing to lay out the options for somebody so Melody I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show seriously I really appreciate it thanks for having me one of the last things that we do here is we ask a question that came from our previous guest on the show so their question for you is what was one major setback in life that you had that you wish never happened but would never take back because of all the things that have happened because of it yeah one major setback in like wow that's hard

[35:11]  um I think professionally for me I had h a time where I wasn't in a great space that was allowing me to thrive and instead of recognizing that and maybe exiting from that I let myself also add to maybe the toxic culture of the environment um so I regret that I was pretty young in my profession at the time but I think about that moment a lot as a leader uh you know sometimes you learn from good moments and you learn from bad moments and I really think about that in terms of the culture that I'm building not just through me but through everyone in the office um and there's been times where it's slipped and kind of figuring out how to bring that back in a positive

[35:58]  way versus kind of leaning into the the toxic culture that was created do you feel like you kind of let yourself get rolled up in it that's one thing I've been focusing on as I've gotten older like there's a lot of things that happen in my environment and when I let myself go down that path I contribute to the bigger stressors rather than kind of taking a step back on the sideline and saying I'm gonna disconnect and not let this affect me yeah exactly and you know and and I realized I also was not in a place to change that culture um so I realized I had to to step out of that culture right even though I was kind of didn't think I would ever leave that that organization um so you yeah I had to make a a tough choice but for a minute there I was not making smart intelligent kind of heart-led um choices in that moment well once again Melody I

[36:46]  just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show guys thank you for watching and listening today once again Melody Ferguson that's around