Alumni Story

When speaking about his Psychology professors at Catawba:

...always willing to help and assist us in our pursuit of mastery. They were ‘tough but fair’, which helped pushing me to fulfill my potential and grow as a student.”

As a high school student in Iceland, Catawba College did not just appear one day on Breki’s radar of potential colleges. An avid soccer player, Breki had help from an agency that linked him with Catawba’s men’s soccer Coach Ken Hassler and other people at Catawba, he explains. “I ended up choosing Catawba because it seemed like the best fit for me both academically and athletically, on top of being in a small community environment.”

Breki was a starter on Catawba’s men’s soccer team during his years as a student, earning academic all-district honors. After graduating and returning to Iceland, he continues to play soccer and assistant coach for the team KH there in his free time. His career, however, utilizes knowledge and skills he gained from his major at Catawba: Psychology. “I've always been interested in how people think and why we behave the way we do, so psychology was always a likely road for me to go down,” he explains about his choice of major.

“I really enjoyed the group of people I worked with in the Psychology department. My cohort was not only fun but also helpful in keeping everyone motivated and on the right track. Furthermore, the faculty I took most Psychology classes with were always willing to help and assist us in our pursuit of mastery. They were ‘tough but fair’, which helped pushing me to fulfill my potential and grow as a student,” Breki remarks about his experience at Catawba.

Breki poured his energy into not only the soccer field but also the classroom as a student, serving as president of the Psychology Club and a member of Psi Chi, Phi Epsilon, and Alpha Chi. He garnered numerous awards for travel to conferences, and in March 2018 of his senior year, his paper was named by Psi Chi as the number one paper for undergraduates in the Southeast out of 300 submissions.

He also found time to minor in both Business Administration and Sociology. “I was able to explore different disciplines in more depth and expand my horizon. I think that is a big reason why I ended up wanting to pursue a master’s degree that is not only connected to psychology but also to business.”  He found that combination in the area known in the U.S. as Industrial/Organizational Psychology, aka Work and Organizational Psychology abroad.  “After graduating I went on to get a master’s degree in Work and Organizational Psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands,” he says, commenting on the scope of the research he undertook for his master’s thesis, “I think the background from Catawba, in particular the opportunities to do different experiments and experimental designs, was immensely helpful when taking on a big research project like this.”

He left the job he had obtained in Amsterdam after finishing his master’s program, returning to Iceland in early 2020, “right before COVID hit Iceland full force. I moved back home and accepted a job as a youth employment consultant at Hitt Húsið youth center in Reykjavík.”  Breki enjoyed his work in that position for more than three years, then another opportunity came his way. Just recently Breki started a new job as an HR specialist at Mannvit (soon to be part of COWI group), an international civil engineering consulting firm in Iceland.  He describes his role there as support for the current employees and continuing to add talent to the engineering team. “Mannvit puts a heavy focus on sustainability in their project selection, mostly in the fields of energy, industry, and infrastructure, and their execution, so I'm really excited to be part of that philosophy.”

Breki says that he hopes to return to visit his Catawba home in the near future. “When I look back to my time at Catawba I realize it provided me with the springboard to pursue many of the things I'm doing today. But mostly I'm thankful for the chance to experience living abroad in a town like Salisbury, meet interesting people from all over the world, and get an education in a close-knit community like Catawba offers!”