Name: Tessy Loew
Major: Psychology
Position in HC @ ODU: Senior Editor and Writer
Other Campus Involvement: Alpha Xi Delta
HC: What is your major?
Tessy: “I am a Psychology major right now, and then I will go on to add a Human Services major. I’ll also add a Criminal Justice minor. So, I’ll be a double major with a minor, and maybe a concentration.”
HC: That’s a lot. How do you manage your time?
Tessy: “I don’t. I really don’t, you can ask [my roommate]. I will go to classes, and then I’ll get lunch with my roommates, and after that I’ll sit with them in the library for hours. I’m also in a sorority now, and they require you to have a certain number of study hours. It definitely helps, because if I didn’t have to do it I definitely would not. It’s a lot of planning; I have a planner and the calendar in my phone is completely full. The month of October is completely blocked out. It’s all color coded.”
HC: What is your favorite thing about being in Her Campus?
Tessy: “Oh my gosh, the girls. The girls are my favorite thing. [They are] all so funny, and so out of the box. I probably would’ve never met any of these girls if I wasn’t in Her Campus because we’re all so different and we hang out with all sorts of people outside of our organization. I also just love the meaning behind Her Campus, and how we’re all for the empowerment of women. I especially love the girls, though. They’re all so crazy.”
{We go off on a tangent here and Tessy talks about how she acts with the people who are closest to her. She gets a Snapchat call from one of her “tinder boys,” and we talk about how most guys on Tinder don’t want a relationship or to get to know people. She hopes that someone will read this article and say “I wanna find this girl and meet her because she’s funky.” I also challenge her to a social media cleanse.}
HC: What is the most difficult thing about editing?
Tessy: “Profiles and personal narratives are so hard because I’m afraid that if I change the words I’ll change the meaning in your words. Most of the time I’ll just add in a comment with an editing suggestion. You don’t have to take my edits, but take my edits. (laughs) In interviews, I just look for grammar, cause you can’t change a person’s words, what they say. [I try not to edit their words too much] cause then it’s not their words anymore, and it kind of decreases the meaning behind being interviewed and being profiled. Personal narratives are definitely difficult too cause I don’t want to change what you said. You say what you say for a reason. That’s definitely a big philosophy of mine. I don’t want to change anybody’s words. I just want to make them better without losing the meaning behind them. I didn’t write [them], so I don’t know the meaning 110%, but I definitely love editing articles. It’s so fun. There are new articles every week and I get to see how everyone improves in their writing.”
HC: So you say that your philosophy is to mean what you say. Do you apply that to more things in life besides writing?
Tessy: “Yes! I’m a big texter. If I have something to say to you, I will really think about what I have to say because words can affect people a lot. I’m a religious person and I believe that everything in the universe happens for a reason, and if I put anything negative out there it will come back and affect me.”
HC: So you believe in karma?
Tessy: “Yeah, I definitely believe in things coming back around and smacking you in the a**. I feel like everyone has a set alignment that they’re supposed to be on. Let’s say you’re on your path, and you’re doing great, and then I come along and say something to you and you get off of your path. I believe that that is going to come back around and affect me. I’m also a Christian, and you can apply this to that religion too, because God has you set on a certain path but you also have free will. So it all just kind of like *clicks tongue*. It’s a big circle. I love that we have so many different religions because we all just believe the same philosophy, in a way. I don’t know, I could talk about it for hours.”
HC: Do you think that your religion and your philosophy affect how you learn about Psychology?
Tessy: “It think it does affect me because people talk about Psychology being very scientific. There’s a fine line with Psychology because it’s between being a science and a health science. At ODU we’re actually in the Sciences College rather than the Health Sciences College. Psychology is very scientific, but there’s also a philosophical aspect to it. It’s so complex, and there’s so much that I’m learning about it. I don’t think I will learn enough in four years. I think that my religion and philosophy has affected the way that I learn about psychology. Ask me again in four years, when I’m in grad school.”
HC: You used to ride horses?
Tessy: “Not professionally, but on my grandpa’s farm in South Carolina, yeah. I was born in South Carolina, and then when I was adopted, I moved up to Richmond and that’s where I was raised. Everyone that I refer to as family is my adoptive family. I don’t know any biological family. I don’t know though, I might have met them. I go back to where I was adopted from all the time. My grandma was the social worker at the time, and she called my parents and said ‘I have this teenager who wants to give her baby up for adoption, would you be interested in going in the pile?’ and they were like ‘sure!’ My parents struggled with fertility issues, and so they said that they would love to. My biological mother had no idea that my adoptive parents were related to her social worker, and still picked them. My biological mother and grandparents lived in the same town, so I could’ve run into her in the grocery store and never known.”
{Towards the end we talked more about her philosophies in life and she gushed about the Her Campus girls– again. You can really tell how dedicated she is to the things she cares about and how fiercely she represents the growing and learning college student, as well as someone who stands up for sexual assault victims. What a gal.}