Every child has a dream. For one student, it’s reuniting families through law. For another, it’s delivering healthy babies into the world. One dreams of caring for patients the way nurses once cared for her, while another hopes to perform life-saving surgeries across the globe.
These aren’t the distant daydreams of future adults; they belong to fifth- and sixth-grade students from West Valley City. And they are the heartbeat of Imagine U Day.
Breaking Down Barriers, Building Lasting Bridges
Now in its fifth year, Imagine U Day is a multi-year initiative led by the University of Utah to build meaningful, lasting partnerships with students, families, and educators in westside communities. This year, University of Utah Health is collaborating with Hunter Elementary, Hillside Elementary, and Ascent Academy, schools in a community where 22% of residents have completed a postsecondary degree, compared to 62% statewide.*
Through this event, young learners experience a hands-on introduction to university life, often for the first time.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for our partnerships with schools. The University of Utah is opening the Eccles Health Campus in West Valley City in 2028, bringing our world-class care into the community. But buildings alone don’t transform a community. The providers, nurses, administrators, and advocates who will one day staff that campus must be cultivated over time. The university hopes they will come from the very neighborhoods served by the new facility.
That’s what Imagine U Day is designed to do. Set for May 20, the event brings elementary students to the U of U campus for an immersive, career-focused experience built around one simple but powerful idea: a college education is within reach when students follow their passions.
“Early on, our partners in westside communities expressed the desire for us to look further upstream and identify ways the entire U campus could help break down barriers to secondary education and create pathways for youth to become our future health care providers, educators, and more,” said RyLee Curtis, senior director of community collaborations for U of U Health. “We believe this program exceeds those expectations, and we’re committed to continuing these efforts in the years ahead.”
From Essay to Experience
Before setting foot on campus, students were asked to write essays about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Those essays, full of ambition, personal history, and remarkable self-awareness, are used to place each student in an on-campus experience tailored to their aspirations.
Departments ranging from architecture to athletics, business, law, medicine, and nursing are all opening their doors to give these young visitors an authentic glimpse of where their dreams could take them.
In Their Own Words
The essays themselves speak volumes about who these students are and where they're headed.
A sixth-grader at Ascent Academy wrote about wanting to become a lawyer, inspired in part by family members who immigrated to the United States in search of better opportunities. “This career isn't just about law, it's about hope, family, and making dreams come true,” she wrote, already mapping out her path from high school AP classes to law school scholarships.
Another Ascent Academy student hopes to become an obstetrician. Her motivation is deeply personal: her youngest brother nearly died from complications at birth. “I don't want that to happen with other babies,” she wrote. “I want them to be born healthy and full of joy.” Her essay demonstrates a striking maturity; she researched burnout rates among OB physicians, examined the financial demands of 12–16 years of education, and concluded that the rewards of bringing life into the world make every challenge worth it.
A Hunter Elementary student shared her dream of becoming a nurse, inspired by her mother and her own experience as a patient. “I had an ulcer, and the nurses saved me by quickly putting an IV in. If they had done the IV a minute later, I wouldn't be alive right now,” she wrote. “The nurses were so kind to me, so it made me want to make people happy by being kind to them too.”
A Hillside Elementary student dreams of becoming a surgeon, not just for herself but for her family. “I want to be successful in life and have my family be proud of me,” she wrote. “When I get older and have kids or grandkids, I can tell them that they can achieve anything in life.”
A Vision for the Future
What makes Imagine U Day special isn't just the campus tour or the catered lunch. It's the message it sends to kids who may never have imagined a place like the University of Utah as somewhere they belong. For students from communities that have historically faced barriers to higher education, a day on campus can shift something fundamental: their sense of possibility.
With a new U of U Health campus coming to West Valley City in 2028, that message carries real urgency. The students writing essays in classrooms today could be the nurses, doctors, researchers, and care providers walking the halls of that campus a decade from now. Imagine U Day is how that pathway starts, not with recruitment fairs or college applications, but with a sixth grader who decides, years earlier, that her dream is worth chasing.
*Source: ESRI, 2025-10-16