Mary-Taylor Zorn

Hi everyone it is nice to meet y’all! My name is Mary-Taylor Zorn (yes it’s a double name I don’t know I guess it’s a southern thing) and I am from Duluth, Georgia. I am a 4th-year Management Information Systems major like most people in this class. I come from a family of UGA alumni so I was pretty much destined to come to Athens since birth. I almost ventured from the family legacy and went to Colorado Boulder, but nothing beats Zell, and I hate the cold. 

I’ve always been the kind of person that is interested in a bunch of different things. I grew up playing a lot of sports and doing a lot of random after-school activities. I did ballet for 8 years from age 2 to 10 and dabbled in other types of dance like jazz and contemporary as I got older. Once I got to middle school I decided I wanted to try a sport that allowed me to be outside, run around, and not have to be so perfect all the time, so I did recreational cheer for one season which led me to discover lacrosse. I ended up playing lacrosse from 6th grade until 10th grade and loved it until it became too serious and stressful for a high school sport. I also did cross country, track, and swim throughout high school so I was always occupied. Aside from playing sports and doing school, I was very into acting and performing. I was in a few plays at a local theater and did a lot of acting camps and acting classes here and there. I did theater in high school as well and let me tell you, singing and dancing to “Dancing Queen” in my school’s production of “Mamma Mia” as a 17-year-old in my spring semester of high school was a surreal experience. 

In college, I definitely mellowed out my activities to focus on school and work. I’ve been a lifeguard at an aquatic center in my hometown every summer since I graduated high school and have enjoyed it so much. I started teaching swim lessons to kids my second summer and was incredibly proud this past summer when I saw kids I had taught in 2020 at the preschool level all grown up and swimming on their own. If money wasn’t a thing I would probably do that for the rest of my life, like come on, getting paid to bask in the sun all day? Sign me up. 

The coolest thing I did this summer and in my entire life frankly was going to Europe solo for 2 weeks. Ok, I wasn’t technically solo because I went with a tour group with 25 other Americans but I didn’t know any of them before we got there so that’s pretty solo to me. We made homemade pasta in Rome, biked around Florence at 3 am, did a wine tasting in Tuscany, baked in the sun in Cinque Terre, ate the world’s best baguette in Nice, and danced our brains out in Barcelona. I’ve always loved to film and make short videos of my life and this was the first time I did something actually entertaining enough to make a really cool video about it. (You can watch it on my Instagram @marytaylorzorn if you would like :)) 

I did choose to be a little bit of an adult last summer and was a Digital Operations Intern at Bread Financial. I learned a lot about agile methodology, product lifecycle, roadmap planning, and what it’s like to be in the corporate world. I really enjoyed my time there and loved all my leaders and everyone I worked with, but since Bread is based out of Ohio, I was fully remote which is something I do not think I could do again. Not living at home at least. I have a hard time feeling productive when I am not in a productive environment and able to speak to people face to face. 

I am very excited about this class because I have always loved to learn new things but there’s a point in school when we stop learning and start regurgitating. Technology and entrepreneurship are so interesting to me so my expectations for this class are that I will actually learn about topics that excite me and will stick with me past college. I expect to be challenged and have to think outside of the box. I expect that my previous opinions and knowledge on the topics we discuss will change. I expect to learn how to communicate my knowledge of the digital world that is understandable to both professionals and the public. I also expect I will be inspired by the stories the guest speakers will tell. Overall, I am really glad that I chose this class to be my MIS elective, and am excited to get to know everyone in the class better!