It was a day in mid-spring when Keene State College was first brought to my attention. I had been in the car with my dad, the window on the driver’s side slightly ajar and a sweet spring breeze wafting into the car. My dad had one arm resting down in the space between our two seats, a neck injury from work leading to damage in his nerves.
“You should look into Keene State,” he suggested as he drove me home, gently turning the steering wheel slightly to the left. “It’d be a better fit for you over UConn [University of Connecticut] or Three Rivers [College].”
Then only a high school junior, I hadn’t thought much about where I’d like to go to college or even what I wanted to go to college for. UConn had always seemed like a reasonable option, if a bit too big of a school for my liking. On the other hand, Three Rivers was much smaller, only a twenty-minute drive from our house.
“I’ll think about it.” Was all I said in response. I considered my brief Google search of the college later that evening to be credible research.
I started looking more into Keene State after pondering the idea for a couple of weeks. It was not only in a nice area but also had promising English and journalism programs that I could join. However, I was genuinely considering majoring in anthropology. Keene State seemed like it could be a good place for me, and the more I learned about the school, the less anxiety I had about leaving home.
News of my interest in Keene State quickly spread to my family members. My aunt, upon finding out that Keene was in the cards for me, quickly put in her opinion about the matter.
“Keene? Oh, Keene is a beautiful school,” she told me, closing the fridge door in our kitchen as she took out a bottle of iced tea. “It was my second choice for college, behind Castleton.”
“It’s in a really good area,” I added, sitting at one of the chairs around our dining room table. “I think I may go for anthropology, although I’m still up in the air about it. They have excellent journalism and English programs as well.”
“You’d like it there,” she reassured me, sipping the iced tea. “It’s a great school not too far from home.”
Hearing my aunt speak so positively about the college only reinforced my desire to attend a campus tour that fall. Whenever we talked about Keene, she only had good things to say about it, as it had been a genuine option for her back in the nineties.
I found Roger Williams University to be a beautiful school with good programs but I was more blown away by my tour of Keene’s campus, which I also visited that fall. My first impression of the campus was similar to that of my aunt’s: It was beautiful and in a really good area. Compared to UConn and Roger Williams, which were both in much more heavily populated areas, it seemed a lot more suitable for someone like me who was introverted and nervous about college.
The tour group we were with wasn’t huge and most of the attendees seemed to be New England residents. Our tour guide, a proud Keene State alum, led us around the campus with a wide smile on her face. It was early autumn, and the leaves hadn’t yet started to fall off the trees in the area. It was windy on campus but the sun shone brightly in the sky above, not a cloud in sight.
We got to see most of the buildings at Keene that day, with one of the large outliers being the Zorn Dining Commons, which were locked at the time, something that surprised our tour guide.
“Huh,” she pressed her hands against the glass, peering into the darkness beyond. “They told me these doors would be open today.”
She moved to try the door handle one last time, giving up when the door refused to budge and rerouted the group to the Media Arts Center (MAC).
I was especially interested in the MAC, which had posters of old movies plastered all over its walls and had journalism inscribed on the outside of the building. Then I was still fixated on becoming an anthropologist, but I also had a deep interest in the art and writing industries, having been an avid writer and artist since childhood. My mind began to wander, considering if maybe art and writing could become more than just a hobby of mine in the future.
While I was very interested in the MAC and the journalism program present at the school, I was only considering creative writing or English as a Minor to take on the side. However, that all changed during my senior year when I took a journalism class at my high school. Through this class, I was able to write for the school newspaper and enjoyed the amount of freedom it gave me. I could express my opinions to other students and developed a genuine bond with the two teachers who instructed the class.
While I loved anthropology, I couldn’t see myself getting a job in the field. There aren’t many career options in the field of anthropology, and I wasn’t interested in becoming either a professor or a teacher, as I had no interest in going to college to become an educator.
My journalism teachers were ecstatic when they discovered that I had decided to major in journalism here at Keene. Ms. Szell, while at first seeming surprised, quickly reassured me that it would be a good career choice for me.
“You’re going for journalism? Oh, that’s amazing.” She cast a glance at Mrs. Malasvasoz, eyes gleaming. “I think you’re going to go far in the field.”
Later that evening, I had my final conversation with my dad about the school.
“We’ll see where it goes,” he told me, leaning back on the couch as he flipped through several channels to find his football game. “Either way, we support you, and we want you to have a good time at college.”
Chloe Erno can be contacted at
cerno@kscequinox.com
