Academics

Re­flec­tions as the Cur­tain Falls


Ar­ti­cle by Dy­lan Farmer

Se­nior year. It’s that time in every col­lege stu­den­t’s life when they are about to en­ter what we call “the real world.” But, as the cur­tain gets ready to close on this im­por­tant time, what ad­vice can se­niors im­part?

Gaug­ing the at­ti­tudes of these se­niors not only gives the Maryville com­mu­nity some in­sight into how its most ex­pe­ri­enced mem­bers think about the uni­ver­sity, but it may also give our newest mem­bers some ad­vice for the fu­tures they are em­bark­ing on as we leave the stage to them.

Emily M., an Eng­lish ed­u­ca­tion ma­jor who will re­turn to Maryville in the fall for a Mas­ters de­gree in oc­cu­pa­tional ther­apy, said that her time at Maryville was filled with many great mem­o­ries. When she looks back, one of the early mo­ments that con­firmed her de­ci­sion to at­tend Maryville was her First-Year Ex­pe­ri­ence, which stu­dents went on the sum­mer be­fore their first se­mes­ter started. 

“At my FYE ex­cur­sion, I met a lot of peo­ple that ended up be­ing in my USEM class. We went to the Sci­ence Cen­ter and the Spaghetti Fac­tory, and it pro­vided me an op­por­tu­nity to get a taste of what Maryville was,” said Emily M.

For in­com­ing fresh­men, she ad­vised, “Take ad­van­tage of every­thing Maryville has to of­fer.” She pointed out that the cam­pus has over 100 clubs, which are great ways, she said, to meet peo­ple “and to build a sense of com­mu­nity.” She also ad­vised fresh­men to take ad­van­tage of the Di­vi­sion of Stu­dent Suc­cess and ca­reer of­fice.

Ash­ley Berger, a psy­chol­ogy and so­ci­ol­ogy dou­ble ma­jor, has been “pretty in­volved my whole time here.” Last year, she was a Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cer and bonded with her fel­low of­fi­cers, cre­at­ing some of her fa­vorite mem­o­ries of her time here.

Berger is a first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dent, and did not think she would be able to get through the ex­pe­ri­ence. She now has in­creased con­fi­dence, hav­ing passed hard classes and tests, and has “re­ally fig­ured it out” when it comes to col­lege.

Berg­er’s ad­vice for fresh­men is to “get in­volved. Don’t sit in your dorm room and not make friends. The peo­ple here are nicer than you think, and every­one is just as ner­vous as you are,” said Berger.

For Julissa Castillo, a health sci­ence and psy­chol­ogy dou­ble ma­jor, one of her best mem­o­ries of Maryville is how much “so­cial sup­port” she has had. 

For ex­am­ple, a men­tor of hers, Dr. Finch, in­vited her to Thanks­giv­ing be­cause Castillo, who is from Texas, was stay­ing on cam­pus for the hol­i­day, mean­ing it was dif­fi­cult to find food due to Gan­der’s re­duced hours. Not only did the hours cause dif­fi­culty, but she also did not have a ve­hi­cle. \

De­spite this, she was “blessed” to be ac­cepted into her men­tor’s home, and will never for­get it, not least be­cause she learned about new foods she had never heard of, like Brus­sels sprouts.

Along the way, Castillo learned more about her back­ground. Be­ing as she is a mi­nor­ity at Maryville, “I started to take note of things that I never no­ticed” when she was the ma­jor­ity in her home­town.

For in­com­ing fresh­men, she ad­vised hav­ing a growth mind­set and not a fixed mind­set. This means that a per­son is will­ing to take new op­por­tu­ni­ties. A fixed mind­set is when some­one be­lieves that their skills and abil­i­ties are fully con­structed and can­not al­ter. 

Peo­ple who have a fixed mind­set tend to “burn out faster”, Castillo said. As a first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dent, so­ci­ety and oth­ers who may have doubts of suc­cess have al­ways in­flu­enced Castillo to have a fixed mind­set, and it was not un­til she came to col­lege that she was able to trans­form it into a
growth mind­set. 

Ever since she be­gan to ex­plore these new per­cep­tions, she has used her
ex­pe­ri­ence in her pre­sen­ta­tions and mo­ti­va­tional speeches.

For Castillo, the most un­ex­pected thing about col­lege was “the cul­tural shock.” How­ever, you have the chance to get in­volved in many ways, she added. She ad­vised stu­dents to “get in­volved and meet peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds”, whether of a dif­fer­ent so­cioe­co­nomic sta­tus, a dif­fer­ent abil­ity, a dif­fer­ent race, a dif­fer­ent sex­u­al­ity, a dif­fer­ent re­li­gion and so on.

For Muna Ab­della-Hazak, a psy­chol­ogy ma­jor, one of her best mem­o­ries of Maryville is her fresh­man year. As she said, “I was kind of shy and quiet”, and she and her room­mate stayed in their room dur­ing most of Wel­come Week. Peo­ple from the sec­ond floor came down to hang out with the two, even though they did not know them. 

As a re­sult of this event, Ab­della-Hazak made friends who she is still friends with to­day. Along the way, she has learned that “if I be­lieve that I can do some­thing, that I can do it” and how to ask for help, a chal­lenge since she has been in­de­pen­dent all her life. She has also learned to un­der­stand peo­ple and their sit­u­a­tions bet­ter.

She ad­vises fresh­men to “take every op­por­tu­nity that you can, be­cause some­times those op­por­tu­ni­ties can lead you to places that you did­n’t even know you could go.”

For her, the most un­ex­pected thing about col­lege was not hav­ing things go the way that she planned, which has helped her grow. For ex­am­ple, she thought she would have a nurs­ing de­gree, but she has learned nurs­ing is not for her. As she said, “I’ve taken a dif­fer­ent path.”

She wishes she had not done so much “con­tem­plat­ing on things I’ve missed out on.” This is be­cause the mind­set made her miss more things.

In short, as se­niors de­part the cam­pus, they have a lot to say. As a com­mu­nity, Maryville could learn a lot from what they know. Let’s start learn­ing.

Au­thor’s note:
As I my­self get ready to leave Maryville af­ter four very pro­duc­tive years, I find my­self agree­ing with a lot of what my in­ter­vie­wees have said. To se­niors, good luck to you in the fu­ture. For in­com­ing fresh­men, take the ad­vice se­niors had to of­fer to heart. It’s go­ing to be a fun ride. I know it has been for me. Au revoir, Maryville. I had a great time here!

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