Pre-Face

I started off my freshman year as a student with Undecided as far as a major, and rooming in Hill-Case residential hall on Saint Cloud State University Campus. I was living with a friend from high school, both of us not far from home (Foley, MN) but knowing that if we wanted to meet new people we needed to get out of the house. I have a family of 7 and lived with my Mom, Dad, older brother, and two younger brothers (my older sister had her own place with her husband). My older brother even advised me to get out~I could tell being at home took a hit on him mentally. Mom and Dad we love you, but there is such a thing as having too much of you. It was either leave or invest in a high-tech door lock. I chose to leave.  

Freshman year was my chance to meet knew people and try new things. Being a small-town sheltered child, there was a large spectrum of things that were new to me. It gave me a chance to step outside of my box. There are people that I met that I am still in touch with. As far as classes went, they were pretty standard. I tried to keep my procrastination to a minimum. Yet, no matter how hard I tried there was a lot that got in the way. What can I say, I was a non-working teenager at the time in a sea of boys. Nothing seemed more important at the time. It's not like I did terrible in class, but my social life seemed to come before my education. Little did I know that this habit that I made in my studies would affect my academics next year.

Sophomore year I decided to dorm in the residential hall known as Mitchell Hall. It was definitely a tough decision for me to make. I was torn between trying to save money and moving back home, to being more independent and doing my own thing. I decided to room with a friend that I met my Freshman year in Hill-Case. I was still not working at the beginning of Fall Semester 2010, however with the help of a referral from my sister I landed a much needed job at Saint Benedict's Nursing Facility. This job not only impacted my study time but also took a toll on my social life. I took notice of the term "Spreading myself thin." There wasn't much I could do about it other than do what I can and not worry about what I couldn't.

At the end of the semester I had already finished up my generals and figured that it was time I stopped dinking around and figured out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. One way or another, whether it be influence from my family or my own insecurities about being successful in life, I came to the conclusion majoring in Business Management was my best course of action. I then signed up for Pre-Business classes for Spring semester 2011. I went through the motions with these classes finding that not only did I only enjoy one of the classes that I was taking, but that if I lacked enthusiasm in this field now things will not likely change for me in the future. I was not okay with being miserable for 40+ hours a week for the next 60 years of my life.

About halfway through Spring semester it was time to figure out the next year's living arrangements. The original thought was to find an apartment with my current roommate and a couple girls that she knew. I found that in order to pay for an apartment I would have to find another job. This became very overwhelming come around midterm-end of semester time. I had found another job as an Answering Service Representative at Customer Elation, but managing training for that along with working my other housekeeping job at St. Ben's, driving back and forth from Foley to Saint Cloud, going to classes, and studying it all seemed to pack it's own personal punch. I had to sit myself down and just take a breather to figure out what to do about everything. I took my father's advice with a grain of salt because I knew that no matter what I would be the one having to live with the final decision. The final decision:
1.) I needed to finish up classes and reconsider a different major
2.) I needed to quit my job at St. Ben's and finish training at CE(better pay)
3.) I needed to move home
4.) I needed to come up with a good way to break this to the roommate
5.) Invest in a high-tech door lock

No matter how I tried to spin the decision to move home with my roommate, it ended up coming out wrong. I tried waiting for the best time to break the news but in this case that time never seemed to come. In the end it came down to the fact that I needed to be smarter than I had previously been financially. I needed to grow up and realize that moving home would save me thousands of dollars (especially since I had just lost thousands on a semester of Pre-Bus classes). A lot of people don't have this option and I did so I needed to take advantage of that. Granted, it may not seem like a grown-up move to be back in your parents basement but let's face it, I'm almost 21 years old and not 30. There's a difference. It would be naive of me to get an apartment that I could barely afford while in over $25,000 of debt already. Finally I finished the semester and was relieved that I had all of this behind me. I felt I had finally made a decision for the right reasons.

During the Summer of 2011 I did some "soul searching" taking online surveys and personality career quizzes. For the life of me I couldn't make a decision. Not that I really should have made a finite career decision due to an online quiz that I took. I just wanted to get this right the first time. I do not want to go back to college in 20 years. I was going to visit a SCSU career counselor to see what advice they had for me.

It was so demeaning to have to tell people upon questioning my career choices that I was back at square one. It truly was my own fault. If only I had not been so interested in the sea of boys my Freshman and Sophomore years...What can you do. I had explained what I was going through to one of my best friends (Samantha Ernst) and oddly enough fate stepped in. She was a waitress at Granite City Food and Brewery at the time and a SCSU staff member happened to be at a table she was waiting on. Some way or another their conversation involved me and she got her information and forwarded it to me. I don't quite remember what department Martha was with, but I took a chance and went to visit her on high recommendation from my friend. I guess Martha had made a good impression her. As luck would have it, Martha was just the ticket. She helped me more than even my general advisor had in the past. She explained her educational history and we both kind of gave our life stories from there. She advised that I read through the whole course chart and highlight anything that I would be interested in. From there, realistically narrow them down. I did exactly this and had narrowed my list down to a couple classes that I took Fall Semester 2011.

Fall Semester 2011 I was a Junior taking a Spanish Culture class along with an Introduction to Travel and Tourism class. These classes really impacted me and sparked my interest(Thank you Professor Bel Kambach). I found a T&T advisor and I am now majoring in Travel and Tourism. There was a huge weight lifted off of me shoulders after I declared my major. I'm very happy with it. It's a very open and exciting field. I signed up with a few core classes and a couple elective classes within major. My class schedule is as follows:
GEOG 395 Section 01
Tourism Distribution Systems
M W F
9a-9:50a
Professor Yu

GEOG 277 Section 01
Geography of Travel and Tourism II
M W F
10a-10:50a
Professor Baker

GEOG 292 Section 01
Tourism Facilities Management
M W F
11a-11:50a
Professor Yu

GEO 144 Section 56
Travel and Tourism Internship Seminar
M
3p-3:50p
Professor Wall

GEOG 460 Section 01
W
3p-5:45p
Professor Kambach

~Wish me luck!!!~