Julie Foeldes and Alexa Anderson greatly appreciate how academics and athletics at Penn State Brandywine influenced them personally and professionally.

The two graduates, both with graduate degrees, returned to the campus recently to celebrate the Penn State Brandywine softball team’s 10^th anniversary.

Foeldes completed a degree in psychology with a minor in human development and family studies in 2018. She went on to earn a doctorate in school psychology from Rutgers University.

Anderson transitioned to University Park and graduated in 2020 with a degree in communication sciences and disorders and a minor in human development and family studies.

She then earned a master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Delaware.

The two New Jersey natives were both outstanding athletes and students. In four years with the Penn State Brandywine softball team, Foeldes started all 148 games as a catcher and is one of nine players to have 100 career hits.

Before transitioning to University Park, Anderson held the single-season record for hits (55), home runs (9), and RBIs (59), and she became the only player to hit for the cycle in a United States Collegiate Athletic Association World Series game.

Foeldes was also a teaching assistant, an athletic department employee, and she completed undergraduate research.

Anderson was a Lion Ambassador and a dancer for THON; continuing her THON involvement at University Park.

For Foeldes, her desire to continue playing softball in college and her family connections to the University — her uncle played football for Penn State — brought her to Brandywine.

“Brandywine was the perfect mix of Penn State and softball, a good education, a good size, close enough to home, but far enough that I felt comfortable,” she explained.

Anderson also liked that Brandywine was close to home and her family and that she could continue to play softball.

Anderson said an academic highlight was working with Jennifer Zosh, professor of human development and family studies, in the child development lab that had just been built.

For Foeldes, an academic highlight was the research she conducted with Joshua Marquit, a teaching professor of psychology, on the correlation between sports and parental relationships.

She also led Brandywine softball’s initiative to partner with a fourth-grade student with a chronic illness through Team Impact.

Foeldes and Anderson agreed that being a student-athlete influenced their future careers.

Anderson is currently working with preschoolers through sixth grade at an elementary school, along with ages 1½-12 at an outpatient speech clinic and ages 50 and over at a hospital.

Her interest in working with kids likely started during her first two years at Brandywine when she helped coach a 14U travel team.

“I realized that I loved working with adolescents because I was also someone they could look to for advice,” she said of the youth she coached.

Foeldes chose a career in school psychology in consultation with Marquit.

She is currently completing her postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology, doing assessments, IQ and academic testing, memory measures, and more.

She also works with neurologists, behavior specialists, and therapists who can address specific aspects of a diagnosis.

Foeldes and Anderson are grateful for the range of experiences they had while attending Penn State.

“Brandywine and all my experiences there — doing all of the different things in the classroom, on the field, with volunteering — definitely set me up to be a good candidate for grad school,” Foeldes said. “And now I’m doing what I always saw myself doing for a job.”

“I just have to wait another few months to take my licensing exam, and then I’ll officially become an adult, I guess,” she laughed.