Misericordia University is home to approximately 3,000 students. While it may be a small community of people, we know that everyone has a story to tell. That's why we decided to do our own spin-off of Humans of New York, inspired by a similar project from Odyssey at IUP. Through this on-going series, we hope to bring to light all the talent, personality, and all-around greatness that fills out campus.
Hear the stories of these 5 Misericordia students: Eddie Okeke, Julianne Cariola, Samantha Miller, Molly Betz and Jeffrey Li as they tell us about their lives as Humans of Misericordia.
"My biggest challenge was probably getting away from home because Pennsylvania is a lot different from New York, which is where I am from. It’s a big change in pace and being far away from parents and family for so long is hard to get used to. I live just outside of New York City, in Rockland County. It is very different from Dallas, PA. The biggest difference is the people. People care a lot more about everyone else here. I remember on my first day on campus, my laptop didn’t work and I took it down to IT and sitting in IT, people would strike up conversations and I just thought it was so weird. Back home, in that same situation, you would just kind of sit there and wait for your turn."
-Eddie
"To be an RA, you have to learn not to sweat the small things. Also, you lose a lot of sleep. A lot, a lot of sleep, so be ready to not sleep. But really, I'd say don't sweat the small things. Like doing something mildly wrong, don't freak out at your residents and yell at them. Kind of go about it in a funny way. I feel like it helps me get better people skills to work in a group, since I'm an OT. For instance, if you just go up there and yell at them like, "What are you doing?!" they're like, "Wow, that person is so terribly mean." Opposed to if you just go and look at them like, "Really guys, you know you shouldn't be doing this. Come on." Going back to the no sleep thing, I have had someone playing the guitar to Seven Years outside of my room, across the hall from me at 1 o'clock in the morning. I woke up to it, and instead of yelling "It's quiet hours!" and being so mean, I was just said "that's really nice, but I want to sleep" from my bed and there was silence after that. So I think that you get more respect from your residents if you don't go about things in a harsh way. And I think that just works in life, to not sweat the small things. There are bigger things that you can get angry at someone for than playing guitar. It was nice, it was pretty, just not at one in the morning."-Julianne
"Living without my parents over my back has been the hardest part of transitioning to college life. I slacked off first semester for sure and I am definitely a lot harder on myself now. My parents were always pushing me to get all my work done on time at home, so coming to college, I started to procrastinate. I learned how to cope and get better with that though. Collegiate level cheerleading also helped me and pushed me. Our coaches hold us to a high standard academically, which is good motivation. I knew I wanted to keep cheering in college because I’m actually a national champion and my team, Rocket Elite All Stars, won in my eighth-grade year at UCA Nationals and I just thought that I love this feeling, I have to keep striving to reach this."
-Samantha
"So, I think music is important because for some people, it’s their strength. Like, there are athletes and there are musicians. They’re completely separate entities. So, for people like me who never really excelled at sports per say, I chose band because it was something I could dedicate myself to and practice, whereas athleticism is mostly a gift. And that’s just a gift I don’t have, so band was perfect for me. It was something I felt comfortable doing and it was something that made me develop good friendships, and it was also something that I had a strength in. Whereas I played soccer and I wasn’t good at it. So I think a lot of other kids should have access to that too, to choose what they want to do, and not be limited to one specific area like athletics. Just seeing it go away in schools, even at the elementary level, it just kills me because those kids will never get to know how it feels to be apart of a large group of similar minded people who all have amazing talent."
-Molly
"My most interesting experience has to be this year when I choreographed a dance to Bohemian Rhapsody in dance club because I’ve been in dance club for three years now. It started in my freshman year. To be honest, it was always weird being the only guy in dance club because naturally all the girls would want to do really girly dances and being a guy would be kind of awkward for me. Last year it was interesting because they started doing shows and dance recitals. I finally had the chance to do my own solos and dance routines with my friend Logan Ferguson, who everyone knows as the Jabbawockee. It was then that I started to find what I like to do. This year, we finally had the opportunity to choreograph and we took inspiration from our favorite dance groups, most notably Quest Crew, Poreotics and Jabbawockeez who we are doing this performance in honor of because we are dressing up as them and we are trying to mimic their style as well as possible. We are also trying to stay true to what we like to do. For me, I like to do tricks. Logan likes to do smooth stuff. We also like to put on a performance and a production, so I really enjoy that."
-Jeff