Interview with Andy

SEP Transfer Orientation

Spring 2008

I graduated from Western the spring of 2008. I just entered the MAT (Master’s of Art in Teaching) program here at Western. That’s currently what I’m doing, it’s summer of 2008.

I started my college career at the Oregon Institute of Technology, stayed there for a year - was miserable. So I took a year off and transferred to a community college, Southwestern Oregon. Got my Associates there and then I transferred here to Western Oregon and it took me three years to get my bachelor’s in mathematics.

The reason I joined the Student Enrichment Program was because my advisor. I was in the program at Community College, at SWOCC. My advisor there strongly advised me to get involved with that here. I applied and actually didn’t get accepted my first year. My second year though, I guess I was on a waiting list. I had actually forgotten that I had applied by the time I was called and they said “Do you still want to be a part of the program?”

It was a pretty good transition for me. My family’s from Salem so I can live with my parents and commute. I like the small town Monmouth community, it’s kind of the same as Southwestern Oregon was, pretty small, smaller classrooms, you get lots of attention from teachers.

I would say difficulty of classes. I was majoring in math, teachers held you to high standards I guess.

The greatest thing I got from that (SEP) was talking with my advisor. Everyone has a major advisor and SEP gave me an extra one to just help me to keep my curriculum in check and make sure that everything was going right. I wasn’t too really involved in too many of the on-campus things. I was vice-president of the Math Club, planed Math-League softball, but other than that I didn’t do too many extra-curricular activities.

Advice I’d give other transfer students? Meet your counselors often and it’s never too early to start thinking about the next step. Always preparing getting everything ready. Usually by the time you need something if you haven’t already thought about it and been planning for it it’s already too late. So, thinking ahead… never too far… it’s never a bad idea to think in advance… to plan for it.

My favorite thing about Western? …So many good things about Western. I really like the community style campus it is. It seems like the community fits well with Monmouth. It’s got the small town atmosphere. People let you go when two cars are coming up to the intersection. Instead of fighting to go someone else goes like this (waves you on), people hold doors for you. It’s a nice place, got nice people here, on top of an excellent educational curriculum.