What I learned in college is...

As a lot of my friends are about to start a new school year and I am about to start my internship (Oh yea, hey guys, I got an internship with the Detroit Parade Company! Yay! I'm the Studio Tours Coordinator Intern. More on that later, I'm sure) I thought I would pass down some wisdom. I fully acknowledge that these are all my own opinion.

To those entering college for the first time:

-Don't freak out if you don't make 500 friends in the first couple weeks

-On the flip side, don't freak out if the people you meet right away don't end up being your best friends. Especially if you go to a school where you know no one, people just feel the need to make friends immediately. Give it a couple months and you'll start to really meet people that you click with.

-If you don't want to drink, don't. Welcome week can be fun, and I'm not even saying don't go to parties. Just do what you are comfortable with. People watching is also great at these events.

-Go to class. This may seem silly, but really it is the main reason you are there.

-If partying stops you from getting to class, cut back.

-Do your homework. Again, not in a lecturing way, but if you are in a class of 100 students, your professor is not going to know who you are or care about why didn't have time. On the flip side, if you are in a class of 15, you can't hide that you didn't do the work and you will look stupid.

-At the end of the year if you want to transfer, really think about why you want to transfer. That was a huge joke at Carthage that everyone left after freshman year, and I honestly don't think a lot of those people gave it a fair shot. I thought about transferring twice (end of freshman year and sophomore year) and I see now how many opportunities I would have given up and missed out on.

-Oh, and if you don't know what you want to major in, take a lot of gen eds but try to pick classes that are specific to departments to. Like if you need a science class but might want to be a bio major, take an intro bio class instead of something that might be "easier". No education is bad education.

For everyone, no matter what year you are in now:

-Get to know your professors. Go to their office hours, even just to say hi if you don't have a question. There are a few reasons for this. A) You get to really know who is teaching you. B) You become more than a face or a number to them. C) Eventually you will need letters of rec for jobs or grad schools and you're going to want options and people who can give more than generic letters.

-Join as many clubs as you can. Go to a couple meetings, see what you like. To this day, I still wish I would have joined CAB (Cathage Activities Board) at my school. They got to pick the entertainment that came, meet people like Bo Burnham, etc.

-Don't waste your summers. It sucks, it really does, but try to get a job or an internship. If you need money for school, get a job your first couple summers. But before your Senior year I would really shoot for an internship.

-Utilize your facilities. Whether it is the gym, library, career services, etc.

-Take care of your friends if you go out. I'm not going to pretend that there isn't drinking and partying and other shenanigans going on. Really though, once you get a pretty set group of friends, what worked best my senior year as far as DDing was to rotate. Don't always assume that you can get a ride at the end of the night.

-Make a bucket list of things to do around your school and city. It keeps things interesting. And if there is a night when you don't know what to do, pull it out and do something.

If you are a senior:

-Don't overstress. In the end it only makes things worse.

-Leave the drama behind. That doesn't mean piss off your friends, but really especially by second semester a lot of things don't matter anymore. Do what you want, leave the rest behind.

-DON'T leave people hanging though. If you've made commitments, don't leave people hanging. Everyone is a connection and whether you realize it or not, your attitude leaves the biggest impression. You don't want people to think of you and say "Oh they were nice and motivated until the end, then they stopped caring and didn't take anything seriously".

-Start looking for jobs early. Like at least 2 or 3 months before graduation. If you are doing the grad school route, start looking now! It's like a college search all over again. Do your research now about application deadlines and their programs.

-Don't be afraid to move back home after graduation if you have to. It sucks at times, but at the end of the day if you are looking for jobs you have a home base that you can leave at any time because you don't have a lease. You are (most likely) living rent-free with minimal expenses because you don't have to pay for things like cable, internet, or food.

-Talk to people about what you are looking for jobs in, the most random of people can have leads.

At the end of the day, have fun. It can be the best 4 years if you want it to be. It really is what you make it.

Oh, and if you go to Carthage: DON'T become an RA! Not worth it.

Leave comments of other advice you have.

"It's been a long day, Simon. We went to Circus World."

So after being rejected from/not hearing back from more jobs than I would like to admit, I decided that I wanted to take a break from searching Craigslist, from applications, from handing people my social security number and praying they wouldn't lose my application to some identity thief and go on a road trip. It was one of the best adventures of my summer, by far! I had a few applications out so I didn't really plan things out as much as I usually would but every went really well and I don't feel like I missed out on anything other than seeing Anna, which is super sad.

I did a lot so I am going to skim very quickly over a lot of things and hit the high points. My trip started on Thursday the 11th, and I went to Colleen Geddes's and saw her and Lauren Eastman.

Lauren and I worked on a lot of stuff for their production of Hansel and Gretel while Colleen went to Footloose. Unfortunately I was too tired to wait for her to come home and I passed out pretty early.

Friday was by far the longest day of my journey. Lauren woke me up at 8:30 and we started getting stuff ready to go while Colleen showered and ate breakfast. Then I went on to Carthage to meet up with people for rehearsal while they ran a couple errands. I was so excited because I got to see Preston Smith, Alex Campea, Nicole Werner, Derek Nelson, Becky Ryan, Skylar Reinhard, Tommy Novak, Elodie Senetra, Herschel Kruger, Lauren Hansen, and Jess Smith.

After moving some stuff into the Niemann Theatre, Derek had told me that Herschel, Tommy, and Elodie were upstairs so I went to see them and got to talk to Lauren as well. Lauren always makes me feel so calm and welcome so it was perfect for my trip's purpose of relaxation. Then I

sat through rehearsal and we ordered Toppers for lunch. Then I hung around until we got kicked out of the library at 5. Then we moved everything out behind the JAC and continued to work until we got rained out.

Preston, Lauren, Jess, and I moved everything to Preston's house to work in his garage, but when we got there we found that a gallon of paint had spilled in Lauren's trunk!

So we spent like an hour cleaning that up before Jess and I met Derek at Ron's place. I made a point of hitting up my top spots of Keno on this trip as well. When I got back to Preston's I helped Lauren paint and Andrew Spinelli came over with Colleen to help us as well. Preston's brother and a couple of his friends were home too so they kept us entertained for a while too. This was the power-through night for most everyone. I went to bed around 4:15-4:30 and woke up at 7.

Saturday was crazy and chaotic, especially since everyone was sleep deprived and cranky. The morning was taken up with last minute building, painting, and costume fittings and fixes. Derek, Nicole, and I went to Soup Depot for lunch and got stuck there for a bit because of the monsoon and hail that came in but, thankfully, left rather quickly. Slim also showed up to the show, so that was an added bonus. Here are a few pics from their performance that actually came out ok (I didn't get many).

After H&G I met up with Tommy and Megan Sterzinger and we went down to see Hannah Binish, Dan Ermel, and Annie Jo Fisher in Footloose. I love how many people I saw on this trip!

Sunday Tommy and I went to the Ren Faire and saw Duck at work, we saw a bunch of shows, and I got Henna.

Monday is where my road trip really took off. Backstory: I've always wanted to go on a roadtrip where you just get in a car and start driving, follow the car in front of you for 2 turns, switch cars, repeat, and just see where you end up. Or drive down the expressway and actually stop at one of the places on the billboards. So that's exactly what happened. Tommy and I were driving up I-90 and we knew based on when we left that we wouldn't make it to MN until after Simon had gone to work so we were taking our time. That's when I saw the billboard...

Me: You want to go to Circus World Museum?

Tommy: What exit is it?

Me: 106, I don't know where that is but I'm moving into the right lane. It's this one, make a decision.

Tommy: Sure!

BEST. Decision. EVER! It ended up being like 10 miles off the expressway and there was a ton of people there. I described it as the place you would go as a child on a family vacation that you have a ton of pictures of but you don't really remember. It's just a plethora of pictures of you and siblings in front of things with drained looks on your faces. However, going of your own accord at ages 21 and 22 with one of your close friends is a completely different experience. Everything was so interesting. This place has the largest collection of circus wagons, they do restorations and recreations, and the movie Water For Elephants rented a lot of stuff from them! Even more exciting than that is that I got to ride an Elephant! Her name was Tiny and we became fast friends. The woman who owned her was kind of weird, but it was fine. Then at the end of my ride, Tiny and I high-trunked! (like high fived, but she used her trunk, get it? Get it!? I still get really giddy when I think about it.) It was probably the best part of my entire road trip (sorry to everyone I saw, you were all cool too).

There was also this like 25' python by the elephant and it was just sitting on this box. It was in a "cage" but by cage I mean those like barrier gates that don't really offer any protection. I even asked the woman with the elephant "What's preventing that snake from just doing what it wants and coming over here?" She shook her head and said nothing. Fun fact: I'm terrified of snakes.

Then we drove the rest of the way up to Simon Skluzacek and saw him at work (there was also the best road sign at his exit that made me feel like I was home! Shown below).

Then we dropped our stuff off at his house and went to the bar. There were a couple guys in there who had Twins shirts on and it was the night the Tigers had lost to the Twins and they kept playing replays while we were there. I have my Detroit pride and I held strong, my cousin Jennifer would be proud.

Tuesday we took a tour of Lakeville, MN where Simon lives and got to see all the places from his childhood. Then we decided to go to the Mall of America. Anyone who knows me knows I hate malls, but the MOA is so far from being in a mall it didn't even matter. We did walk around a lot, but it wasn't so much like shopping so much as site seeing. We played mini-golf, ate sushi, Simon left for work, met up with Courtney Matula and Eric Sipe, and went to SeaLife. What's SeaLife? Oh, just the aquarium that is the entire basement of the mall! Like I said, this wasn't a mall, this was like an adventure building. We didn't ride anything but there is also a few roller coasters inside and other rides. It's like a mini Universal Studios because it was all Nickelodeon themed.

After we left the mall we went up to St. Paul and saw Stephen Schreiber and his girlfriendJoann. It was so good to see Stephen and catch up with him. We talked a lot about Carthage and theatre and being in the real world. Best of luck to you with your job search, Stephen.

Wednesday Simon made us breakfast, we watched How To Train Your Dragon, and Tommy and I started our trek home. To go along with our theme of spontaneity, it started with Tommy saying "Have you ever ridden a duck?" and ended with a detour to the WI Dells. I had no idea what a duck was, but it was really fun. To others who do not know, they are these vehicles that were used during WWII that are driven on land and through water. We also realized when we were driving around the Dells looking for a place to eat that Baraboo, WI where the Circus World Museum is was just around the corner. That explains why there was so many people there.

Thursday was my final day of driving. I stopped in Geneva, IL and had lunch with Peter Haroldson which was exciting since I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to see him.

Overall, the trip was more than I could ever had planned. As a girl who likes details and to know where I am going to go and be at every moment on trip, it was so nice to let loose and not worry. To just know that whatever happened would be in the moment. It is also crazy to look at how the beginning of my trip was than the end of my trip. I would love to take another trip like this someday. Maybe I will actually get to do the two-turn follow the leader next time.