I am sure you have all seen those days in the life videos online, but have you ever wondered what the people around you are like?
When I think of campus life, I automatically picture the students that walk the campus. There are over 37,000 students who attend Temple University, so it certainly is not possible to get to know every single person here, but it is reasonable to get to know a few different students, which is why I decided to interview three students with different majors so I can get an inside look of how their lives differ.
Kelly
The first student I interviewed was Kelly. She is a junior with a major in Management Information Systems (MIS) at the Fox Business School here at Temple. She originally was an International Business major but soon realized she did not have enough passion to be able to pursue a career in that field. Kelly knew she wanted to stay in Fox because she not only wanted to pursue something in business, but she also wanted to keep her scholarship for the business school as well. She has always been drawn to using her business and technical skills, so she decided to switch her major to MIS. Kelly knows nowadays technology is the new norm so she knew switching majors would be a clever way to incorporate a diverse number of skills.
I asked Kelly what her typical workload is like for an MIS major, and to my surprise it is not too overbearing (if you put in the effort of course). Most assignments are in class activities where they mess around with different user experience design programs along with practicing web development like SQL, MongoDB, and Python. The hardest concept for her to grasp was data analytics due to having to write out different codes for the programs on paper. A lot of mess ups took place and with those mess ups, come incorrect information. Despite this obstacle, Kelly was able to push through with hard work and with having her community at Fox. Kelly described the people at Fox as “…welcoming and willing to help you with whatever you need without judgment.”
Although Kelly described her personal and school life as being a good balance, a goal she has is to put more effort into studying a decent amount of time before her exams instead of waiting until the last minute. The opportunities that have been brought to Kelly have been immense. She interned at a small nonprofit company over the summer and learned very valuable skills while also utilizing the skills she had already learned in class for the field of work she is interested in, which is being a project manager. Along with this, Kelly gained great connections to use for the future.
Joie
The next student I interviewed was Joie, a junior history major in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA). As I was interviewing Joie, I became more and more fascinated with her background and how she decided on history being her major here at Temple. All throughout high school, Joie had a passion for all things STEM-related, especially coding and robotics. She was even a part of a women’s only coding program at her school. Believing that she wants to pursue a career in STEM, Joie applied to multiple colleges as a STEM major. What I thought was interesting was that Joie did not apply for the same STEM major in all the colleges she applied to, she applied with different majors within STEM. So, at this point, you would think Joie is definitely going to be some sort of STEM major at whatever college she decides to go to, but that is far from the case.
Joie decides to go to Temple as a finance major. Unexpected turn of events, right? When Joie attends Temple Day, which is a day for admitted students to be able to explore campus and the opportunities within their majors, she discovers that there is barely any diversity. She felt out of place being one of the only women and people of color amongst all the white men that were there to pursue finance. From this moment she instantly switched to a history major. I ask Joie “why history?” especially after all these major changes. Joie informed me how she has always done well in social studies and history in school and enjoyed it in general because it has always come naturally to her. She also prefers longer lectures over a typical 50-minute class because she retains more information and learns better that way.
I asked Joie what her typical workload is like for history majors, and she told me it consists of many readings and papers. Some of her classes have semester-long papers where you spend the whole semester gradually working on this paper that accumulates to a final project grade. With all of this, Joie spends most of her time conducting research to be able to write these papers and learn more about what exactly is required from her. Just like Kelly, Joie also described her personal and school life as being a good balance and she has fun being a history major. Her future career goal is to be a teacher and pursue law school part-time. She likes the aspect of being able to work while in school. Being a divorce lawyer is the end goal for Joie because as she quotes, “big money and built-in drama.”
Lisa
The final student I interviewed was Lisa, a junior Health Information Management major (HIM) in the College of Public Health at Temple. Lisa transferred to Temple this semester from Jefferson University. She was previously a nursing major at Jefferson and soon realized she did not have the passion to keep pursuing that major, which is why she transferred to Temple. Lisa wants to be involved in women’s healthcare, but she prefers to be behind the scenes rather than doing clinical care. As we all know, technology is modernizing every day and Lisa has always loved technology but grew more of a passion for it because many of her peers are computer science majors. This played a part in her wanting to switch majors to a more technological route. Lisa’s typical workload is heavy compared to Kelly and Joie’s. Most of her work is from her healthcare and technology classes in which she must memorize medical terms and learn how to apply her healthcare knowledge towards healthcare scenarios. A skill she must continuously build upon is her problem-solving skills since that is a major skill you need in the healthcare field.
I asked Lisa what her hardest concept to grasp was and she informed me that it was Anatomy and Physiology because of all the concepts applied and the memorization behind it all. Although, her current class Medical Terminology, has helped her learn the terms more easily because in this class she learns the prefixes, suffixes, and root words which helps her understand the terms.
Last year, Lisa described her school and work-life balance as not balanced at all. Lisa put more time into her social life rather than school but decided to turn that around when she transferred to Temple. She started studying more consistently and focusing more of her time on her schoolwork and making that her main priority. Lisa is going to continue to better herself and do things that bring her joy like writing poetry and reading. In the future Lisa wants to possibly work in data analysis while working in women’s healthcare whether that is in a hospital, or a company related to health. She also wants to give back to others by coordinating charities and fundraisers.
Wow, three students at Temple University with such different yet similar lives. I enjoyed getting an inside look at what goes on within Kelly, Joie, and Lisa’s life and becoming more fascinated about what goes on in their everyday lives. This is your sign to get to know other students here at Temple!