One of my Simpson Stories

Greetings Friends,

I thought I would take a break from blogging about my fabulous adventures in London and talk a little bit more about Simpson and my experience while on campus.

You'll always hear when you visit Simpson's campus that the professors here care about you both in and out of the classroom and that they're always ready to talk about class,life,tv, whatever and you probaby always think: "yeah, right" "Loras,Luther and Central all say the same thing." Well I can tell you from first had experience that at Simpson it is most definitally true and I have two perfect examples.

It was near the end second semester and almost time for dead week, it was a Tuesday night. I had been dilligently working on not one but two portfolios that were due that week as well as a speech for my speech class. I decided to take a break and go out to eat with some of my fraternity brothers up at Buffalo Wild Wings in Des Moines. We eat, hang out in Des Moines for awhile and come back. I get back and continue to work on the portfolios. One was for a mock start up theatre company for my Stage Management class and in it I had to have: a budget,goal of the theatre, flow chart showing the order of command in the theatre, mission statement, 2 different press releases, actor packet and a few more things. Most of this had already been turned in, but now I was fine tuning it for the final and making sure everything was good. My other portfolio was for "The Simpsonian" and all I had to do for that one was put together my news articles I had already written, and I can't remember what the speech was about. But anyway, Im working on this and it gets to be 1 or 2 am and I have a brother(fraternity) come to me needing to talk, so we then sat for a couple hours talking about a few different things that he was dealing with and that were going on in his life and I in turn shared the current drama in my life. We finish and I go back to working on my homework.

By now its 5am and I realize I need to get some sleep or I won't even function the following day. So, I go to bed,planning to get up early and finish things. Well, I realize when my alarm clock rings 2 hours later that it isn't going to happen. I realize that if I was to attend class I would be the boy that falls asleep and looks like an idiot and that I really need to finish this homework. SO, I e-mail my professor and let her know what was going on. Explaining to her that I was up all night working on things and helping out some friends with issues. I felt horrible, I really did. I am one of those kids who CAN'T skip and feels really guilty when he does because he's afraid he's going to miss out on something important.

So, I sleep a little longer and then get up and finish all the things that need done. Later that afternoon I go into my professors office to beg for forgiveness for missing class and to explain to her what was going on.

However, the very first thing she says when I walk up to her is "Are you Okay?"

I felt so lucky and loved in those two seconds. That the very first thing she asked is how I was and if I was okay. NOT, "why'd you miss class?" or "I can't help you, find notes from someone else." This just really made me even more realize how much professors here really do care. Besides that, she was already an amazing professor who I learned SO MUCH from during my class with her.

SECOND STORY

This one happened just this week. If you read my previous blog, you know about the new volunteering I get to do at "Theatre 503". Well, its all thanks to the professor with us, JP. Who from the beginning has really wanted to get us theatre kids helping out in a theatre. He went around and asked all sorts of fringe theatres,off-west end theatres if they needed help. He didn't need to do this, we all already had set up other volunteer programs. But he wanted to because he knew how much it would help us. It was also really great how excitied he was when we left the meeting and knew we were set. It was just really neat, knowing that he went out of his way to try and get us some more learning opportunity.

These are just my stories and there are plenty more out there. This isn't something you can get by going to a big school, where you're known as student number 005406 and just one of 200 kids in a lecture. At Simpson the professors know your name, the activities your involved in and ask about them.

Whenever I walk by my advisor on the sidewalk he asks how I am and how theatre productions are going. I've had professors stop me on the sidewalk and comment on my article in The Simpsonian.

The professors here at Simpson are here because they care about 1) the subject they are teaching and are some of the most passionate people you'll meet when it comes to their subject and 2) ME-the student.

Just something to consider when looking at schools.

Cheers
Drew