Morgan Sjoerdsma, who is the most decorated golfer in Cal State LA history, has consistently set new standards for excellence during her time with the Golden Eagles.
The 23-year-old Alhambra resident is ready to take the next step towards a career as an educator and high school golf coach, and she is determined to help her future pupils unlock their potential by learning to embrace life’s challenges.
This past spring, Sjoerdsma graduated from the College of Natural and Social Sciences with a 3.97 GPA and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with an option in integrated teaching as part of Cal State LA’s Class of 2024. She has returned to her alma mater to pursue a Master of Arts in Educational Technology and play out her final year for the Golden Eagles.
Throughout her Cal State LA golf career, Sjoerdsma has garnered numerous awards and established multiple program records, cementing her status as one of the nation’s top golfers.
Her accolades are vast. In 2022 alone, she became the first Golden Eagle golfer to win a tournament, earn All-America honors from the Women’s Golf Coaches Association, qualify for the NCAA Division II West Regional, and then finished the season ranked 25th in the country by Golfstat. Since then, she has won two more tournament titles, led the Golden Eagles to the team’s first national playoff berth, and earned three straight selections to the All-California Collegiate Athletic Association First Team.
A recipient of Cal State LA’s prestigious Billie Jean King Female Athlete of the Year Award, Sjoerdsma has excelled both on the course and in the classroom. She has earned repeated academic recognition at the school, conference, and national level, and this summer she became the first player in the university history to earn Academic All-America honors three times.
“From the moment she stepped onto this campus and into our golf program, she has embodied excellence in every possible way,” said Cal State LA’s Golf Head Coach Hans Kersting. “She is a remarkable student, a wonderful player to coach, and possesses incredible leadership qualities that will certainly lead her to an amazing career after Cal State LA.”
As the daughter of two educators and the niece of many more, Sjoerdsma had always gravitated towards teaching as a career. However, it was her experience both witnessing the transformative influence of a warm substitute teacher, and learning to embrace discomfort that drew Sjoerdsma to high school as the setting she could make the strongest positive impact.
“I realized that was something I wanted to provide for my students,” said Sjoerdsma. “I wanted students to be excited to learn from me.”
At Cal State LA, she relied on guidance and encouragement from faculty like Debasree Raychaudhuri, who recognized Sjoerdsma’s potential to excel in the accelerated environment of the Integrated Teaching Program.
“Rarely have I come across a student as dedicated, as focused, and as disciplined as Morgan Sjoerdsma,” said Raychaudhuri. “Morgan will shine wherever she goes and whatever she puts her mind to.”
As a part of the Integrated Teaching Program, Sjoerdsma developed lessons as a student teacher at the Alliance Marc & Eva Stern Math and Science School. She engaged her students as individuals first, learning about their interests and passions—like truck driving, soccer, or engineering—before helping them direct those passions into their assignments. It’s an approach that helped students get unstuck, excited about their work, and realize their potential.
Sjoerdsma strives for these moments of success. She aims to develop students’ confidence in higher-stakes situations, like test-taking, by normalizing and making these environments more fun. Her goal is to help them get comfortable with the challenges they will inevitably face in life and prepare them to thrive under pressure.
From the outside, Sjoerdsma appears to relish and thrive under the air of competitive pressure. But, for a long time, that pressure had been nearly paralyzing.
In her youth and high school golf career, Sjoerdsma dreaded golf tournaments. Prior to teeing off, she often fixated on all the possible bad shots she might hit throughout the day. Beyond golf, she worked through deep shyness before eventually starting to step out of her shell by the end of high school, thanks to guidance from her teachers.
Since then, Sjoerdsma has learned how to embrace pressure to overcome life’s challenges.
One of those challenges came ahead of Sjoerdsma’s final round in the 2022 California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships. Leading the tournament field by a few strokes, she found herself worrying about the conference’s fierce competition right on her heels.
As she thought through the final round, Coach Kersting reminded Sjoerdsma that the pressure of the moment was an honor that she had earned, and if wielded, could be used to propel herself toward her goal.
When she approached the final hole, Sjoerdsma’s teammates gathered around the green to watch. Once she clinched the title with a two-putt par, they charged onto the green to celebrate her accomplishment as Cal State LA’s first-ever individual tournament champion.
Those moments of realized self-belief have informed how Sjoerdsma sees herself making an impact on the lives of high school students in the future.
“I think I can help those kids that might be a little bit paralyzed by pressure and nerves and help them realize that it’s not a bad thing,” said Sjoerdsma. “If you can learn to work with it and embrace it, then you can go a really long way.”
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California State University, Los Angeles is the premier comprehensive public university in the heart of Los Angeles. Cal State LA is ranked number one in the United States for the upward mobility of its students. Cal State LA is dedicated to engagement, service, and the public good, offering nationally recognized programs in science, the arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education, and the humanities. Founded in 1947, the University serves more than 26,000 students and has more than 250,000 distinguished alumni.
Cal State LA is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, Hydrogen Research and Fueling Facility, Billie Jean King Sports Complex and the TV, Film and Media Center. For more information, visit www.CalStateLA.edu.
