2008 Woodie Awards
Being 'Berg's Van Wilder
Stacy Romascavage
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Op/Ed
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I graduated from Muhlenberg College this past May with a B.A. in Media and Communication with a minor in Political Science. This fall, I was planning on attending Hofstra University to obtain a Masters degree in Journalism. I did enjoy journalism, but I was not in love with it to the extent to pursue a career in that field. Besides coming to this realization, there was a lack of communication Hofstra provided concerning the Masters degree, which turned me away from going there. Their apathy was so great that to this day, they did not assign me a dorm room in which to stay. This is pathetic, considering I sent in the housing deposit check three months before school even started! I also applied for four graduate assistantships and heard nothing from them, after calling each at least five times. Why should I go to a university in which they could not even return a simple phone call and show no concern for incoming graduate students?
After coming to the conclusion that I was not going to Hofstra in the fall, I looked around to see if my true career was evident this entire time. Where I live, my family has chickens, sheep, goats and other farm animals. Taking care of them throughout my childhood was always a passion, but I really did not listen to my heart. About two weeks before classes started, I had a talk with my family as to what I really wanted to do post-college graduation. I told them I wanted to go back to Muhlenberg and take science classes to fulfill pre-requisites for veterinary school. They were happy I was pursuing what was in my heart and said I would be stupid not to follow that path. They further told me that it is better going back two steps and then going ahead five (going to Muhlenberg to take science classes, then going to veterinary school) as opposed to going back five steps and going ahead two (going to Hofstra and getting the Masters and THEN deciding I want to go to veterinary school). I would have felt extremely guilty if I went to Hofstra, got the masters degree in Journalism, and then not used journalism in my ultimate career. Granted, an education is never a waste, but I would have felt ashamed putting in so much time into a field when I would not have used it to its full potential.
After coming to the conclusion that I was not going to Hofstra in the fall, I looked around to see if my true career was evident this entire time. Where I live, my family has chickens, sheep, goats and other farm animals. Taking care of them throughout my childhood was always a passion, but I really did not listen to my heart. About two weeks before classes started, I had a talk with my family as to what I really wanted to do post-college graduation. I told them I wanted to go back to Muhlenberg and take science classes to fulfill pre-requisites for veterinary school. They were happy I was pursuing what was in my heart and said I would be stupid not to follow that path. They further told me that it is better going back two steps and then going ahead five (going to Muhlenberg to take science classes, then going to veterinary school) as opposed to going back five steps and going ahead two (going to Hofstra and getting the Masters and THEN deciding I want to go to veterinary school). I would have felt extremely guilty if I went to Hofstra, got the masters degree in Journalism, and then not used journalism in my ultimate career. Granted, an education is never a waste, but I would have felt ashamed putting in so much time into a field when I would not have used it to its full potential.