Utah Valley University student Chris Neff (he/him) thought he knew what he wanted to be: a paleontologist, studying dinosaurs and ancient mammals and geology. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed that.

Inspired by a desire to help people, Chris changed his degree to biology with an eventual goal of becoming an epidemiologist, working on vaccines and other ways to prevent people from getting sick.  

“COVID just kind of really changed my perspective on the world and what it really needs,” he says. “I wanted to help people without being a doctor or teacher or something in public service.”

Chris also works as manager of the UVU Campus Store Starbucks, and he says that as people have returned to campus, there’s been an increase in the level of awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people.

“Everyone’s been gone, and as they’ve come back, they’re like, ‘Oh, maybe we should love each other,’” he says. “I feel like it’s gotten better.”

Chris grew up in Prescott, Arizona, and says his family was aware of him being gay before he even knew himself. By the time he reached high school, he says he started to figure things out, although he stayed in the closet until he began studying at nearby Yavapai College in 2018.

“When I started college, I thought, ‘You know what? It’s time to be me,’” he says. “I have the most loving and accepting family ever. They were like, ‘Dude, we knew. Took you long enough.’”

After completing an associate degree at Yavapai, Chris began looking for an inexpensive option for a bachelor’s degree. Someone suggested UVU to him, and he says he fell in love after visiting campus, especially after seeing nearby Mount Timpanogos.

He was accepted and began classes, transferring from a job at a Taco Bell in Arizona to one located in Provo. When UVU’s new Starbucks opened in the Sorensen Student Center, he applied for the manager job there and swapped the tacos for coffee beans.

“I’m a full-time student and I work full time,” Chris says. “I tell everybody, I am very tired all the time.”

Despite all the hard work, Chris says he loves the number of people he’s gotten to know on campus through working at Starbucks — he knows their regular drink orders and often waves to them and chats in the halls. (His own favorite drink, he says, is an iced caramel macchiato with oat milk and blonde shots.)

Chris says he’s comfortable being an openly gay man as a UVU student and employee. He serves as a PACE senator and hopes to work more on LGBTQ+ issues in that forum, and he and LGBT Student Services director Em Branvold talk frequently.

To other LGBTQ+ students at UVU, or anyone considering attending, Chris says he hopes they know how loved they are.

“Be strong, and always remember that there's nothing wrong with who you are,” he says. “And even if it's not your family or friends, you are loved and people care about you.”