Me in front of Independence Hall

This past weekend, I traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the SUNY Oswego History Club. The club takes a trip to a historic location every year. Last year, we went to Washington, D.C. and that was a lot of fun for me, so after visiting the national capital one year, I visited the old U.S. capital this year. Although, I did not expect some things to happen on this trip.

After four straight weeks of traveling, Oswego to Alabama, to Memphis, Tennessee, back to Alabama, back to Oswego, down to Binghamton and back, and then to Philadelphia and back, I’ve got 4,000 miles under my belt, 95 percent of them from activities I’ve done through SUNY Oswego. Traveling and staying with groups for long periods of time always causes a little tension somewhere on these trips. Philadelphia was no exception.

By the time we ventured back into the historic city on Saturday morning, we hit that point. The driver of our car was not used to driving in big city traffic and everyone clashed on where they wanted to go and where they wanted to park, and how far they were willing to walk, and how much this parking garage charged and when it closed. On top of that, everyone’s GPS’s sent us on many goose chases the whole weekend. By the time we finally parked the car, there was still so much tension that everyone split up and did their own thing for the majority of the day.

That was, until the phone call came.

Me at the Benjamin Franklin Institute

My friend and I were examining the last piece of tourism we wanted to see that weekend, the grave of my hero, Dr. Benjamin Franklin at Christchurch Cemetery, when someone from one of the other groups called me. I was able to understand the name of one of our group members and “seizure,” “running,” and “hospital.” I gave the phone to my friend to try to make out what was going on but we figured it out pretty fast. One of our group members fainted in one of the museums and had a seizure. Museum security guards called 911 and sent an ambulance while the remaining members of that group ran ten blocks through downtown Philadelphia to the hospital. Now it was our turn. After already walking seven miles and digesting a Philly cheese steak, my friend and I did our own jog through downtown to find the hospital. We contacted the other members of our group to tell them the update, and they made their way to the hospital themselves.

Less than an hour later, after spending the whole day our separate ways, we were all reunited, not in one of the rental cars as we expected, but an emergency room. And all of that tension and yelling that had occurred earlier was suddenly swept away, completely forgotten, because it didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that we were a crew with a missing member, one that was getting a CT scan in a hospital in a different state of residence, 300 miles from home, 18 hours before we were scheduled to leave for home.

We were all together again, not arguing about silly things like parking, but asking each other what we could do to help and how to keep our injured member’s parents updated, keeping everyone calm, and figuring out how long of a wait it would be.

It made me really think. It’s amazing how when a crisis hits, people just forget all of their differences, because when a crisis happens, there’s one thing everyone has in common: they’re all in a crisis. And when you’re in a group, if not everyone is present, it messes everyone up.

Our member spent the night at the hospital and we visited her in the morning, bought flowers and a card for her, and finally she was released. With that, we made our way back to SUNY Oswego, as a whole, with everyone on-board and safe, and remembering what the important things in life are.

History Club in front of the “Rocky Steps”

If you’ve lived in Funnelle Hall on the SUNY Oswego campus any time in the last three years, you would at some point, no doubt, run into the friendly face of Resident Assistant Christianna Miller.

Being an RA can be a challenging and time-consuming position. It is not exactly common for an RA to remain an RA for the remainder of their college career, let alone in the same building. The duty of an RA is to communicate with and guide and mentor students, as well as maintain the law and safety on their individual floor. Miller has mastered all of those challenges. She was the recipient of the Community Connector Award in both 2011 and 2012.

Miller said her initial interest in the position was for financial reasons. RAs are compensated with free room and board from their tuition costs.

“Since I was fortunate enough to have the luxury of my parents taking care of my expenses, I felt a moral obligation to do whatever I could to alleviate some of the costs, because as most of us are aware, college is not a cheap experience,” Miller said. “However, what made me stay an RA was all of the enriching experiences I had.”

Miller getting “pied” at a “Pie Your RA” good cause event

An RA position requires hours of training and the hours of on-call duty vary from week to week. There are also approximately three to five hours of program activities RAs are required to do throughout the academic year.

“You also have to account for floor meetings, staff meetings, hall council meetings, decorative duties, such as door decorations and bulletin boards, and also the abundance of planning that goes into everything,” Miller said.

Miller is a communications major and creative writing minor and still has the responsibilities of being a full time student as well as those of being an RA. She is enrolled in six classes this semester and has a full time job in the Campus Center and does volunteer hours as well.

“If I did not master time management a long time ago, I would be a hot mess,” Miller said. “I am a big “to-do” list person; these have made time management a cake walk. I recommend list making to everyone. Sounds so cool, right? Also, knowing when to ask for help is equally important. Sometimes I cannot take on everything and there is nothing embarrassing in asking for help. What is embarrassing is having a bad final product because I spread myself too thin.”

Miller’s  run as an RA has taught her how to be a great communicator and said she has wanted the people that have lived on her floors to know they could always count on her.

Miller during an RA outing to a museum

“I would want them to see me as someone they could go to if they had an issue, a concern, a need to simply vent, or a complaint,” Miller said. “I’d want them to know there is no situation I would not help them with. I’d want them to know that my room is a bias-free, no-judgement zone.”

Miller has been an RA on three different floors in Funnelle Hall and has offered her services to many residents during that time.

“Christianna is a great RA who I now consider my friend,” former resident Jessica White said. “She was always there for me as an RA and after she changed floors she continued to be the person I went to with my problems. I trust her and she has helped me through so much. I truly believe that without Christianna, my college experience just wouldn’t be as awesome.”

Miller will be graduating this spring and said that while the big things, such as residents doing nice things for her after she did nice things for them, mean a lot to her, it’s the little things that she will remember most from her RA years.

“I enjoyed spending time at the front desk, whether it was dancing, giving baked goods to visitors, or cleaning and finding odd knick knacks. I enjoyed all of the programs we have hosted as a staff. I enjoyed the excitement of move-in day and the sentiment of move-out day. I enjoyed training sessions with my fellow RAs. I could go on forever. When I graduate, I will be taking so many memories with me that have made my time at Oswego worthwhile. I would do it all over again. There have been so many people I have met here that have changed my perspective, my opinions, and in some ways, my life.”

I have to say that during my freshman year of college here, I was pretty intimidated by the overwhelming amount of things that happen at SUNY Oswego. I came from a high school that was connected to its middle and elementary school and graduated in a class of 61 people. The only thing I ever participated in besides academics in high school was drama club. It was definitely worth it. I was able to snag two lead roles in that time and know the ways to make a proper performance.

When I first came to SUNY Oswego, I knew I wanted to do more. And everyone that I had talked to about college had told me to get involved in things besides academics. From the start, I joined The Oswegonian newspaper and a few clubs but only went to their general interest meetings and then fizzled out over the next few weeks.

Over the last year or so, I’ve just begun to notice just how much SUNY Oswego can do for someone and where it can take them. I made it a goal of mine last year to not say “no” to things so suddenly when they come up. There were a lot of opportunities that came up that I simply refused and others thought, “yeah that would be cool, but I’ll probably never do it.”

That changed last year and it has rewarded me ever since. One of my favorite things to do is travel. I’ve been to almost half of the U.S. states and have seen some wonderful sites of North America and close to home in New York State. I befriended the president of the history club last year and she told me over winter break that the club was going to Washington, D.C. later that spring. She knew I was a huge history buff and asked if I might want to go. I had wanted to go to Washington, D.C. since I was in fifth grade. I wanted to see the Washington Monument and the original Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, along with all the spectacular monuments. This was one of those “yeah that would be cool, but I’ll probably never do it” moments. But then I went…

It was one of the best trips I’d taken in years and was everything that I expected it to be. I also met some people that became my best friends this year and became a full time member of the history club. We are going to Philadelphia in April, another place I’ve always wanted to go. The whole trip just opened my eyes as to what I had the ability to do now.

In November of this year, I was told about “Alternative Spring Break” that SUNY Oswego offers. I’d heard about it before, where students have volunteered to go down to New Orleans to help in the still on-going repairs from Hurricane Katrina. I was told that the trips this year were going to Mississippi, Alabama, and Iowa. I thought, “Well, I’ve never been to those states before” and I love helping people so for only $150, I was gladly able to jump on that band wagon. I was placed in the Alabama group, which is volunteering for Habitat For Humanity and I leave for that in just a few days.

I’m hoping to go international next year, whether it be the international trips that Alternative Spring Break offers or a Communications quarter class where students can go to Paris or London over spring break.

I never even imagined I’d be doing any of these things during my college years. I’ve come to realize that now is when I have the time, the expenses are right, and the overall experience is always worth it. SUNY Oswego and college itself offers so much to do in a little four year span. All you have to say is “Yes.” In terms of my joy of traveling, it’s a wonder to think of all the places I’ve gone and all the places I might go, all because I decided to go to SUNY Oswego.

Hello!

My name is Luke Parsnow and I am a junior at Oswego State. I am a double major in journalism and creative writing and a minor in history with a concentration in American history. I am from Sterling, New York which is only 12 miles from Oswego.

I have been a writer since I could learn how to write. Arguably, I was a writer even before then. My grandmother predicted that I would be a writer when I was three days old, the day I came home from the hospital and the first time she held me. And I have since, not disappointed her. I started writing seriously when I was in second grade. I actually wrote to my teachers and asked them if I could come in early before school started and use the computer to type up my stories since I didn’t have a computer at the time (I live on a dirt road in the woods.) And when my household finally DID get our first computer, the latest and greatest 1989 Windows 3.0 special…in 2003, I didn’t use it for the things all my friends were using it for. While they used it for gaming and things called chat rooms, I used Microsoft Word to write my stories. I wrote my first novel when I was ten and have since completed seven others. When I was 12, I began to learn to play the mandolin and guitar at 14 and soon took my writing to a new form: songwriting. I’ve recorded some of the songs I’ve written and some have been played on the radio out of Kingston, Ontario.

At SUNY Oswego, I wrote for The Oswegonian my first two years of school. This year, I became the Assistant News Editor and have written nearly 50 articles for the paper, along with editing other stories. Besides The Oswegonian, I’ve been published in the newspaper’s semeserly sports magazine, The Play Maker and The Legislative Gazette, a government and politics newspaper out of Albany. One of my creative stories was also published in SUNY Oswego’s student arts magazine, The Great Lake Review.

So now as a student blogger, I will continue to write in another new form. I will be bringing to you students that have made something of themselves at Oswego State and are sure to prosper later on in their life. Oswego is not just a state school on the edge of a lake that dumps a ton of snow on it. Oswego is a gem and a lot of great people are building their futures here. I will seek out them and tell their story because everyone has a story. And I will tell my story in between, along the way.