Emma Gray
Editor
Kaiden Pope, 22, is a Parkland student, avid artist, and reporter for the Prospectus.
Pope started her time at Parkland with the intentions of getting a degree in social work and going into the field. However, after looking into social work more she decided to switch to business administration. Since then she has slightly changed her course and is getting a degree in general studies at Parkland before transferring to Eastern Illinois University in the fall where she will pursue a degree in organizational development with a minor in business administration.
After receiving her Bachelor’s, Pope plans on going into human resources.
Though Pope is going into business, she is first and foremost an artist.
“I like to make things; I like to do projects,” Pope said.
Pope expresses herself artistically through a variety of mediums, including paint, pastel, pen, writing, needle point work, knitting, crocheting, music and more. Pope has also designed three tattoos which she has on her arms.
“Most of my art comes from personal experience,” Pope said.
Recently Pope’s paintings were displayed in Chicago at Capricon, a science fiction and fantasy convention.
“I’m really into…[science fiction] and that whole geek culture,” Pope said.
Currently Pope is working on crocheting a temperature afghan. For each day of the year she is crocheting a row for the high temperature of the day and a row for the low temperature of the day, with different colors corresponding to different temperature ranges.
“It’s huge. I accidentally cast on too many stitches so I’m going to have to do like three blankets throughout the year,” Pope said. “I’m like a month behind on the blanket.”
Pope finds time throughout her day to do creative works whenever she can.
“I spend a lot of time on the bus…sometimes I take my needlepoint on the bus,” Pope said. “But whenever I’m just hanging out watching TV, I’ll [crochet] a couple rows…It’s kind of mindless, once you get into the groove of it. I’ve been knitting and crocheting and needle pointing my whole life, so it doesn’t take that long for me…When I’m watching TV, I can’t just be sitting there watching, my hands have to be doing something otherwise I go stir crazy…so I’ll do needle point or crochet while I watch TV.”
Pope also plays clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, violin, recorder, alto recorder, tenor recorder, and piano. She says growing up, music was a requirement of her mother and was a good way for her to make friends.
Pope says that when she was younger she wanted to be an artist full time and support herself off her art.
“Then I realized that I was dirt poor,” Pope said.
As she got older, Pope realized that she would not be able to sustain a good quality of life just through her art or through minimum wage jobs, especially considering her medical conditions which can make working in face paced environment like restaurants difficult. Pope has fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes widespread pain, and syncope, a disorder that causes fainting.
“I had to figure out a way to survive in this capitalist society…without being in the lower class of jobs, which basically meant getting a degree,” Pope said.
Pope decided on business because she believes that with a job in human resources she will be able to make a decent living and move up throughout her career, also fulfilling her ambitious nature. She also believes that in human resources she could help people get the most out of their careers and help the company find valuable workers.