Oral History Program Brian Stecklein Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 9 April 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Brian Stecklein Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 9 April 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The First-Generation Oral History Project began in 2018 in collaboration with Weber State’s First- Generation Club. The commonly accepted definition of a first-generation student is one whose parents/guardians did not earn a Bachelor’s degree. This project was created to capture the experiences of active first-generation students and alumni in an attempt to better understand the challenges that first-gen students face. These interviews explore the difficulties of navigating college, including scholastic and financial hurdles, as well as highlighting current students’ future goals and alumni successes. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stecklein, Brian, an oral history by Chelsee Boehm, 9 April 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Brian Stecklein 9 April 2018 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Brian Stecklein conducted on April 9, 2018 in the Stewart Archives Conference Room, by Chelsee Boehm. Brian discusses his life and his experiences as a first-generation college student at Weber State University. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, is also present during this interview. CB: Alright, my name is Chelsee Boehm and today is April 9, 2018. I am here with Brian Stecklein. We are going to be talking about Brian’s experiences as a first-generation student at Weber State University. Just to clarify, a first-generation student is one whose parents’ have not completed a four-year college degree. Alexis Stokes operating the camera. So, to begin, can you tell me when and where you born? BS: Yes, I was born in Ogden, Utah. I grew up in the city of Sunset. I was born in 1963. So, that puts me a little bit on the older side. CB: Do you have siblings? BS: I have two sisters. They are both older than me. The oldest one is 13 years older than I am and the other one is nine years older. They both got married right out of high school. So, I was kind of like an only child from about ten years old and on. CB: What did your parents do? 2 BS: Both of my parents worked for Hill Air Force Base. My father was an electroplater. And my mother worked as, we’d probably classify it as a secretary, but she called it data communications. They were both basically blue-collar workers working for Hill Air Force Base. My dad also served in World War II, so he was a veteran and spent his career, of 30 years at Hill Air Force Base. My mother actually left on a medical retirement. CB: And what did you say your dad did? BS: He was an electroplater. What they do is take the landing gear off of airplanes like the C130’s etc., strip all of the metal off of it and then put metal back on. This could be chrome, nickel, gold, or silver. Depending on what the part was, where it was going and the purpose. So, it’s a process they do. They’d strip those parts and rework them so they could be utilized again. Sometimes making them better then new. CB: Very cool. So, you grew up in Sunset. Can you tell me what high school you went to? BS: I went to Clearfield High School, Sunset Junior High, and Sunset Elementary. So, I was a Davis County boy during my growing up years. CB: And were you involved in any sports or clubs or anything like that growing up? BS: No. Most of my extracurricular activities were in the Boy Scouts of America. I had a good active troop that I belonged to and I spent a lot of time doing that. I did play some sports but never for school. I started one time, but I spent about a day 3 there and it interfered with my Boy Scouts and I preferred to participate with the Scouts. I was a cello player from elementary through high school. CB: Maybe you don’t remember, like, the exact moment, but when did you realize you wanted to go to college? Or what made you realize you wanted to go to college? BS: Well, my family didn’t talk about it a lot. I think that’s the blue-collar mentality. But, there was always support there and we discussed it at different times. But it was probably during my Scouting program when I got the biggest impetus to go to college. I wanted to be a forest ranger to begin with. That’s what I wanted to go and do. I worked through that, but then the same people that got me in that direction kind of said, “Well, there’s no money or jobs in Forestry.” And in high school I became very interested in electronics. Back in my senior year, I spent most of my time just doing all electronics classes and I was determined that I was going to come up to Weber State—at that point to be in the electronic technology engineering program. But, I didn’t know anything about college. My parents didn’t know anything, and I didn’t know anything. In fact, it was because of my electronics teacher—I remember him talking to me and saying, “Well, you’re going to go to college.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he says, “Where are you going to go?” And I said, “Weber State.” And he says, “Well, you got a scholarship, right?” I said, “What’s a scholarship?” I didn’t know what a scholarship was. He said, “Hasn’t your counselor talked to you?” “No.” And it was because of him that I got two scholarship offers from Weber State to come up and pursue electronics. CB: Awesome. So, do you remember what year you started at Weber State? 4 BS: Yeah, I started in 1981. I graduated from high school and started that next fall at Weber State. I was not ready. CB: Yeah. So did you end up taking a break? BS: Yeah, so I’ll talk about that story just a little bit if you want me to. CB: Yeah, please do. BS: I came to Weber and I was going to be an electronic engineer in technology major. I came up and they had a little session as I recall, and the advisor, he was a faculty member actually at that point. He handed me this paper and said, “You follow this plan and in four years you’ll have your degree.” And I thought, “Okay, that sounds great.” So, this was back when we were on the quarter system. These were all five credit hour courses. So, one was a math, the equivalent of 1010 today. The other one was a digital electronics class and the other one was a chemistry 1010 class. I didn’t do so well. I did fine in the digital electronics, did okay in chemistry, but did not do well in the math. I hadn’t had any of that since a sophomore in high school. Well, it just didn’t go well. I got put on probation with my scholarship and all. They let me take the scholarship for one more term, and I kind of got smart and took easier classes. I didn’t know that you could drop out of classes. I didn’t know anything about what I could and couldn’t do. CB: Right. BS: And I went to the next term and then I dropped out for about a year and a half to two years. 5 CB: And what did you do during that time? Were you just kind of working? BS: I worked and then I served an LDS mission. CB: Where did you go? BS: I went to South Dakota. CB: Very cool. BS: Yeah, and I worked for Smith’s Food King and I was working for them during high school etc. But, then when I got back from my LDS mission, I was able to be a little bit more serious. I came back and took courses, but I abandoned my electronic engineering technology major. I became a psychology major. CB: Was there any particular reason why? Was it just something you were interested in? BS: I was just interested. I took some gen ed classes. You know, they helped me to see different things and I was real interested in what was going on in psychology, until I got into the theories of personalities class. And I sat there and I thought, “I don’t want to listen to this for the rest of my life.” So, I had enough for a minor and switched my major to art. I’ve had really kind of an interesting path as far as my undergraduate degree. My actual degree is in art with an emphasis in photography and a minor is psychology. CB: Very cool. So, when did you graduate with your bachelor’s? Was it ’88? BS: Yeah, I think 1988. CB: Okay. And then there was a break in between that and your master’s, correct? 6 BS: Correct. CB: So, did you start working for the university right after your bachelor’s degree? BS: No, actually before. Let me tell you a little bit about that. I came back and started fall term and then winter term I met my wife. I had quit Smith’s Food King. My parents said that they would help me, that they would give me so much a month so I could just go to school. Because they asked me, “Well, what would you like to do, Brian?” I said, “ I’ve never been able to go to school without working.” Because all through high school, from 12 years old on I worked. I started out with a newspaper route, as soon as I was old enough to do any other type of work, I became a janitor, then worked for Smith’s Food King. I had been working all that time. They said, “Okay.” That lasted one term because I met my wife and we were both unemployed at that point and we both said, “I guess we better get some jobs if we are going to get married.” I was looking at all different places and then I received two offers from Weber State, one in the advisement office and one in Continuing Education. Really, the only reason I chose Continuing Education was because they gave me 25 hours a week, versus 20 from advising. So, it was about the money. CB: Right. BS: I was working for continuing education as an hourly employee for about nine months. Then I got my first salary employment right around this time back in 1985… no ’86. 7 CB: Okay, and what were you doing when you started as an hourly employee. Like, what kind of work were you doing? BS: The campus had Continuing Education to take over evening school and to build that up. I was there to keep the office open until eight o’clock. That was my main job. But, as an hourly employee you get all kinds of duties as assigned. CB: Okay. Then when you got your salary position, were you kind of doing the same thing? BS: I was. I was a registration clerk for Continuing Education and that lasted for five years actually and got myself and my wife through Weber State. CB: Very cool. BS: The tuition waivers were really great. Plus, we qualified for grants and so we were both able to make it through school. She graduated before I did. CB: And what did she study? BS: She’s a teacher. A secondary teacher and she studied English and German. CB: So, obviously, being an employee, you’re learning more about funding opportunities. So did you mostly learn from experience, from being on campus, about the grants and things like that? BS: Yeah. Really, I think that kind of goes without saying with any of the employment at Weber. If you get employed in certain areas, you get to learn quite a bit. By being a registration clerk, I got to learn a lot because we were actually—for Continuing Education we did admissions, registration, and cashiering—one 8 person. You didn’t go to separate offices. I was one of those people. I got to learn a lot about the administrative processes of WSU. I would learn a lot about financial aid just by people asking questions. You know, we would always refer them, but we also wanted to be able to answer some basic questions on what kind of financial aid there was. It was that work that helped me through my education. CB: Definitely. So, in the times that you were working on your bachelor’s degree were you involved in any clubs or extracurricular activities? BS: You know, I wasn’t. I started looking into some but when life starts to happen and you get married, your interest in that just isn’t there. I mean, I was involved in the LDS Institute a little bit. Which is different from a club but it functions in a similar way. CB: Okay. BS: We were your typical commuter students. We worked, went to school. CB: Did you live in Sunset after you were married? BS: No, actually we lived here in Ogden, down on 33rd and Jefferson. We lived in her grandparents’ house for the first six months prior to that. They were snowbirds and so it was winter time and we stayed in there and just paid the utilities and then we moved to Ogden. We finished our undergraduate degrees there and moved to Roy. CB: Okay. So, did you have children at this time? 9 BS: We did. We had our first child before my wife even graduated because I remember her reading books for her English degree, rocking the baby and reading the novels at the same time. We were fortunate enough that my mom was willing enough to watch, Jessica, our oldest girl during the time that Melinda was in school. So, that was really helpful. CB: How did you balance all of those things? BS: That’s a really good question. I look back and I sometimes wonder, “How did we do that?” I look at it now as being a grandparent and the grandkids come over for just a little while and I’m just like, “I’m exhausted.” But, fortunately, like I said, we had some good people that helped us and then once we had our second child, my mom said, “No,” and we had to look for daycare. So, we looked for daycare to take care of them and we survived through that type of situation. CB: Okay. Alright, so, you said you started as a staff in 1986? And then you graduated in ’88. So, what made you decide to come back to school? BS: To get my master’s degree? CB: Yeah. BS: Pretty pragmatic. In order for me to move up in the organization I needed a master’s degree. That’s what I did. I almost didn’t do it. I mean, I took a few classes and ran up against some instructors that were kind of gatekeepers that I didn’t really necessary agree with. But, as summer opened up and those classes were being taught by somebody else and I took them. 10 CB: Okay, awesome. I guess, I should back track a little bit. BS: Sure. CB: So, you were a salaried employee, you said you were in charge of keeping the office open. Can you tell me, how you moved up? What some of the other jobs you had were? BS: Sure. I started as an hourly employee and kept the office open as a registration clerk. Then went as a salaried employee and as a registration clerk. Then we had a professional position came open—actually this is kind of an interesting story. A profession position came open in and I applied and actually was denied because I didn’t have enough school and or experience. CB: Okay. BS: That was my first opportunity to get one. So, I didn’t get that job. Which was kind of hard. But, you know, I kept on and I never really pictured myself being where I’m at today. Then I finished my undergraduate degree and another opportunity came up to be in conferences. So, my first job was working with conferences and workshops and I spent five years doing that. After that five years, they asked me to do evening and off campus. So, I was part of helping with that. There used to be a metro center which was in the Ogden City Mall, which some people don’t even know existed, depending on how old you are. But, we were in the basement of that. I helped with the Clearfield center which was in Lakeside Plaza, then the Layton Center which was on Antelope Drive. Then the Layton Center moved to 11 Gordon Avenue, which became the first Davis Campus. Which then became the Davis Campus on the hundred acres. CB: Right. BS: I helped with all of that. We were working with high schools. We were in Clearfield, Northridge, and Davis High School. And we operated all of those centers. We also opened a center in North Ogden for a while but that closed down because of budget cuts. I did that for quite a while. I can’t really put in a date for that particular one. Then I became a director. That’s where the master’s degree was really important in order to move up to that level I needed to have a graduate degree. And I was doing similar work. I was working with different areas. I had concurrent enrollment—early college as part of that too. And then, I did different director’s positions for a number of years. I did a lot of credit activities. Not too much in the non-credit arena. And then became the associate dean about ten years ago with all program areas reporting to me. CB: Awesome. What did you get your master’s degree in? BS: It’s in curriculum design and instruction. So it’s an M.Ed. From the College of Education here. CB: Did you notice any changes in the campus from being an undergraduate to a graduate student? Or maybe just changes in being a graduate student? BS: Well, certainly changes from being a student. CB: Totally. 12 BS: But, yeah, going to a master’s program was a lot different. A lot more participatory from the student perspective. In this particular program, I was a higher education person in a dominant public K-12, program, with K-12 oriented student body. It was really interesting to see the perspectives they brought and then the perspectives that could be brought to higher ed. But, it was a lot more participatory from a student perspective. There was more sharing from a student side. So, the student was valued as a knowledge generator also. CB: Absolutely. So, obviously you had a wealth of knowledge from working at the school. But, were there any kind of big hurdles as far as like applying for grad school and starting it? Just because it is kind of a different animal. BS: Actually, only in my own mind. In fact, I remember this very vividly. About every five years or so, I get a little antsy. You know? It’s like I need a change of some sort. And I was thinking, “I need a change.” And so, I went to talk to Jack Rasmussen, who is now the dean. Back then he was the department chair. And I had thought about my wife, who was a school teacher and I thought, “Maybe I want to do that.” I went and talked with him. I told him I was thinking about going back as an undergrad. And he just looked at me and said, “Why would you do that? Just go get your graduate degree.” And I hadn’t really thought about that. And he said, “Yeah, you could create a path that would get you certified and get your master’s at the same time. This is what you need to do.” And you know, I was a little afraid to ask. Part of it being, I didn’t want any conflict of interest. You know, I didn’t want to take advantage. Which, really isn’t kind of a smart thing to think about. I should have taken advantage all that I could. And as soon as he 13 laid that out I thought, “Oh, well this is easy.” My grades were high enough so there wasn’t a standardized test to be get into the program, so I just had to write the essay, which was fine. I was in. CB: So, you have been on and off of campus for like 20… 30 years? BS: Thirty years. Actually, in May it will be thirty-three years that I’ve been employed. But, if you go back to 1981, then it’s a little longer than that. CB: I mean how does that feel? Like how do you feel about that when you think about it? BS: I love it. CB: Do you? BS: I really do. I mean there are always days in anybody’s career that you just kind of go, “Do I have to go to work today?” That happens to everybody. I don’t care how much like you like your job. But, overall, I have enjoyed what I have done. I love the campus. I love the people I work with. Great people! You don’t always think alike, but that’s what life is about. I mean, you learn things when you don’t think alike. CB: Absolutely. BS: So, that’s been a great, great experience. I have some great people that I have worked with over the years. I have really enjoyed my career here at Weber State. I mean it’s been fantastic. CB: Awesome. 14 BS: I look back and I listen to some people and I look at my wife right now who is a public educator. And she loves to teach. But, there is so much other stuff going on besides teaching in her profession. She is just really struggling. And I don’t have that stress. There certainly are concerns and there are certainly things that have to be taken care. There’s certainly stress, etc. But, overall, it’s good. CB: Yeah, that’s wonderful. So, the answer to this might seem kind of obvious, but, how do you think going to college changed your life? BS: Well, it’s a really interesting question. I think it helped me to think. It helped me to think about the world in a lot broader way. It was kind of fascinating because my family was a blue-collar family, you know? My sisters, my brother-in-law’s, etc. And when we would go to eat with them—and I’m not putting them down, but the conversation was just different. It was more about daily things like sports, weather, etc. That’s not to say that an education person doesn’t have a big affinity for sports, they do. But, there was just a different level of conversation. My wife and I have talked about that over the years as she’s talked with her colleagues in the school district compared to she’s spent time working for Wilson’s Sporting Goods, at the Freeport Center. There was just a real difference in what people think about and how they think about things. Overall that is what education is about, it’s helping you to be a little bit more open. To challenge things and not just take things on face value. I think about my mom, who just passed away this last October, and she was 90 and she believed everything that was on TV. If the news said it, it was true. Education says, “Well, let me check that out.” You know, “That’s interesting and it may be truthful to a point, but 15 what’s the other side?” I think it taught me that too. It taught me to think there’s always another side. Always. It’s up to us as individuals to determine what we believe is right and wrong and that’s our own judgement. I think that’s what education also brought to me, is that our job is to educate ourselves and then determine what we believe is truth, which won’t be truth for the person sitting next to me. We may agree, we may agree to disagree. We may agree to these points. Then I think to be able to have that dialogue in a civil manor is what education brought. You can sit down and just agree to disagree and that’s okay. And be okay to celebrate and say, “You know, I appreciate that perspective, I don’t agree with the perspective. But I appreciate it.” It’s helped me to think about my own thoughts in that arena, but it’s not a fight or an argument, it’s a conversation, which is what I think we lack in the world today. We can’t have those conversations much anymore. And actually, I think in higher education it’s becoming a bit of an issue. CB: Absolutely. So, what would you say to a perspective first generation student who’s interested in going to college? Like, what kind of advice would you give to them? BS: Get help right away. Find somebody. Get to your academic advisor. See them often—at the very minimum once a semester. At a minimum. But, maybe a couple of times. Find yourself a good mentor. I remember Richard Sadler talking to my daughter when she came up here. And I really liked this advice. If you get into a class and you don’t like it, get out. Right away. Don’t think that it’s going to get better, because it’s not. Go find another faculty member that better suits you, 16 because we are all different. Faculty members teach in different styles and we should understand the styles we learn the best from. And then I had another person give advice—I didn’t have this when I was going through, but I think it’s another really good wisdom. Take instructors, not subjects. Find instructors that relate to the goals you have in education. Take instructors that are going to help you pursue those goals both educationally and vocationally. Find instructors that are going to help you meet those and don’t be afraid to talk to people, which was really difficult for me. That was hard for me when I was an undergrad. Very difficult. CB: Talking to people about your own goals? Or just in general? BS: Yeah, just in general. I’ll maybe share an example. CB: Yeah, if you want to. BS: I was having difficulty with a course and I was working really hard. I was going to tutoring, I was studying, etc. I finally got brave enough to go talk to the faculty member. For me, that was hard. Just to go and knock on this authority’s door. Because both of my parents were Depression era children, and I was born later in their lives, so a lot of people my age would have been the children of the children that were born during the Depression. Does that make sense? CB: Yes. BS: But in that, I was taught to be very respectful. To respect authority and not to challenge authority. Not to question authority. You know? And that’s kind of the blue-collar way too, right? I mean, you just say, you do this, and you say, “Okay.” 17 Or you get fired. And that’s kind of the mentality. And so, to go in and talk to this professor was difficult. And I explained to that professor and said, “I do this, I get the homework alright. But, then when I sit down for the exam it’s like the exam is from outer space. I’ve never seen any of these questions. I don’t understand it.” And this was not helpful, it made it even worst for me, because the professor just said, “Well you’re supposed to understand these concepts.” And that was it. You know? And, I just kind of put my tail between my legs and scooted out the door. And it made it even more difficult for me to talk to faculty. And even in my own field that I studied, I just did not talk to faculty enough. They are there to help you. They’re there to help guide you and hopefully each student that graduates from Weber State has found at least one faculty member that can be their mentor. At least one, to help them in their degree, to help them to further their career, etc. I would certainly recommend that ought to be every student’s goal. Especially a first-generation student’s goal. They need help right away, because there is nobody at home to tell them, “Oh, you’re failing your courses, drop out now. Before you get the ‘E’ on your report card and then have to make that up.” CB: Right. BS: Yeah, it might hurt you a little financially. But, ultimately in the long run you don’t want that grade on your transcript. A ‘W’ is not great either, but it’s better than an ‘E.’ CB: Right. BS: Or a ‘UW,’ which is even worse in my mind. 18 CB: Did you have someone that was on the faculty, in either one of your programs, as an undergraduate or a graduate student, that became like a mentor to you? BS: I never really did, which was hard. Fortunately, for me, I worked here, so I had a lot of knowledge through that. I had other people that would help mentor me outside of those faculty members. There were faculty and that gave me some direction and that type of stuff. But, I had a good associate dean that I worked with that helped me. My associate dean was Ann Millner. She was a great mentor. And so was my Dean Richard Ulibarri. My associate dean, probably more so, because she was so driven. Trying to do all the things that she was going that lead her to her presidency. CB: Right. BS: But they were both very good mentors. CB: Do you remember having any professors that you really liked? Or that you really enjoyed being in their classes? BS: I do. In my photography classes, Michael Herbert, was his name. He was fantastic and so was Kurt Fishback. They were two of the photography instructors that I enjoyed. Actually, Susan Makov. I mean, those are probably three that really stood out to me. And Susan, actually, not so much until I got out because she challenged me and challenged me in a really big way. And I was actually angry with her. So, it wasn’t really like a real mentorship but, later I thought, “You really did help me.” And we had a conversation and she said, “You needed to be pushed and I was just pushing you.” Even though I satisfied the 19 main requirements. She said, “You needed to do more.” But, Michael Herbert was really good. He taught me a lot about photography and what happens there, so did Kurt. Both were good. And I think, for the most part, that is what happens with many majors. You know, you get up in those upper division courses. And especially here at Weber State, you’re working with faculty and that’s very helpful. CB: Absolutely. Do you still do photography? BS: I do, it’s been a challenge. Things have changed a lot. The basic concepts are the same, like, light and how it relates, and the tools that you use still function in a similar way, but there’s like a hundred ways to get to there. Where before there was one. CB: Right. BS: But I do a little bit. CB: Very cool. Okay, so, what would you say that you are most proud of as a first-generation college student? Or graduate? BS: I would think that just the fact that I finished. Really. CB: Absolutely. BS: Also I was an example to my own children. But, in that, I was also a realist in that. I don’t believe that college is for everyone. Even though society says—it kind of pushes in that direction. Especially, I believe so here in Utah. But, I don’t 20 think college is for everybody. I believe everybody needs some education beyond high school, for sure. But, it’s not necessarily at a university or a college. CB: Right. BS: I hope that I was an example in that to my children. And I think to date that’s kind of showed. My daughter is an elementary school teacher, she went here and did the eight-year plan. My son, my middle son, he’s a diesel mechanic. He went to the DATC. He started here and found that it wasn’t for him. CB: Yeah, absolutely. BS: And then, my other son is kind of a trader. He’s down at UVU. But, he will graduate next fall with a finance degree. CB: Awesome. BS: And you know, I’d like to think that it was through mine and my wife’s example… and us always talking about education. Because it was always a subject that we always talked about. CB: Yeah. Awesome. BS: I would say that hits the thing that I guess I am most proud of. There’s something about starting and then finishing it. You know? And I started something and dropped out of it. I didn’t know what I was going to do. In fact, when I first started, I was working at Smith’s Food King. And the way they worked, you worked up through the ranks. I mean, you started at the bottom and then you just worked up to management. And I was on that pathway. I think they liked me and I think that 21 they had some conversations with me about starting to do some of those things. But, at that point in time I joined the LDS Church and then served an LDS mission after that. I came back from and things had changed dramatically. Dee Smith died while I was gone and things changed in the store. I went back to work for them for a while and I didn’t like it at all. We were kind of like a family before I left. And it was different. I get it from a customer service point of view, absolutely, they were doing some of the right things, but from a worker perspective it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. CB: Well, we’ve gone through all of the questions that I had. Is there anything that you feel like you want to add? Anything you feel we missed? BS: Well, I think, again, as it relates to the first-generation college student, you’ve got to be brave. You must get that idea in your head that you’ve got to get out and you’ve got to talk to people and make those connections just as soon as you possibly can. Even before you start any classes. So, you get on that right path. You have some knowledge that you don’t have. You know that you can withdraw from classes, you know that you can change classes. Going back to my experience as they gave me that sheet. I registered for the classes, and I thought, “Well, that’s it.” I was in the classes and you just stayed until you finished, even if you weren’t doing well. “Okay, I guess I just get a bad grade.” Well, I didn’t know that you could withdraw. But, it all worked out in the end. Explore! Don’t think of general education as some onerous thing because it’s going to teach you some things. It’s going to teach you how to think. It’s going to teach you how to be creative. And you may find your major you didn’t think you 22 would ever be. Take some of those courses that you just think that you might enjoy and might have interest that fulfill your requirements. Don’t be afraid to experiment!