From Student to Fitness Pro: How Working at ASU’s Gym Changed My Life

I almost went to Arizona State University to study jazz.

I had been playing saxophone my whole life and walked into my audition for the Jazz Studies program overconfident and underprepared. I assumed natural talent would carry me through. It did not. Looking back, that rejection was one of the better things that happened to me. I pivoted to Biology, then eventually to Exercise and Wellness, which turned out to be exactly where I needed to be.

Finding a Job on Campus

I did not work my first semester. By spring I was ready to start earning money and began applying for on-campus jobs. My transportation was a bike, which meant I needed something close. My experience at the time was thin — mostly umpiring youth baseball back home.

The fitness center was the obvious choice. I was already there regularly, I knew the space, and the weight room supervisor position fit what I could offer. The facility was massive — two full weight rooms serving a student population of over 60,000. Someone had to keep an eye on things for safety and liability reasons. I leaned on my high school athletic training background in the interview and got the job. I had to wait until summer to start.

First Days at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex

Working at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex meant keeping the weight room clean, handling customer service, and managing anything that came up — injuries, disputes, the general chaos of thousands of students moving through daily. Keeping the space clean was genuinely relentless. I stopped trying to achieve perfection and focused on staying useful and alert.

The team was solid. Student workers who were friendly, collaborative, and made a low-paying job feel worthwhile. There was a rumor that someone got fired on the spot for doing a pull-up during their shift. True or not, it kept everyone appropriately focused.

The Path to Personal Training

The slow hours between rushes turned out to be unexpectedly useful. With time to observe, I started absorbing everything happening around me — different exercises, techniques, how experienced lifters moved, what worked and what did not. That passive education started shaping my own training.

Several coworkers were already certified personal trainers. They made a straightforward case: better pay, more autonomy, and a better shirt. I spent the summer earning my certification and was training clients by the fall of my junior year.

It was humbling immediately. My clients — a mix of students and faculty — often had little fitness background, which required me to meet them where they were rather than where I assumed they should be. Looking back with what I know now, there are things I would do differently. But that gap between what I knew then and what I know now is exactly what learning looks like. Every session made me sharper.

The Bigger Picture Starting to Take Shape

Around the same time I started training clients, I began volunteering at physical therapy clinics to work toward PT school. My days became a loop of fitness center shifts, personal training sessions, and clinic observations. Each piece informed the others.

By senior year not much had changed in the routine, but something had shifted in how I thought about health. Working with people directly — watching them struggle, adjust, improve, and sometimes plateau — made health feel less like a subject and more like something that required real understanding of real people.

That orientation toward the individual within the broader context of their life is what eventually pulled me toward public health. The gym was where it started.

More Than Just a Job

The Sun Devil Fitness Complex was not a prestigious position. The pay was minimal and the work was often monotonous. But it introduced me to a field I care about deeply, gave me my first real experience working with people around their health, and — not a small thing — is where I met my wife.

Grateful for all of it.

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Marcus Clark is the founder of Evolution of Wellness LLC and holds a Master of Public Health degree. This post is for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider for personalized guidance.