Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map. And to hear your favorite stories from last season, you can find our free podcast on itunes.
Randi Bass is studying journalism and atmospheric science. She told us about what it's like adjusting to college life.
“It’s been really fun but it’s also been kind of tough ‘cause I’m from Maryland and it’s a big transition coming from there and moving here. When I was a little kid, growing up, I always liked to watch the weather report on the morning news and I was like, that would be really cool to be able to do that someday and then I took a couple of classes related to it in high school and I felt like it was a good fit for me and I know that not a lot of people do it.”
We met Young Hye, from South Korea, taking an intensive language learning class.
“I saw pharmacists and I saw engineering people in their country and they want to learn English so they can have jobs in many countries. So that was kind of interesting, because all they needed was English to get good jobs.”
Callie Bassett told us about her journey back to Columbia after a summer job in Estes Park, Colorado.
"So I starting May 27 spent the summer in Estes Park Colorado working at the YMCA of the Rockies, which was awesome - a really great summer. And then August 16th we started heading back to come back to Columbia and we did a road trip and decided to drive through the night. My friend Siri and I did the graveyard shift from like midnight to six in the morning when we got to Kansas City and yeah, it thunder stormed and rained the entire way home and so creepy the thing about flat Kansas is that there’s windmills everywhere and so every time it would light up with lightening, you could just see random windmills everywhere but yeah, so I got back to Columbia at 8:30 in the morning and slept for six hours and then started school in a week so it was a really quick turn around but I was really happy to be home."
Transfer student Steven Cook is taking in the campus environment and preparing for his first year at the University of Missouri. But jumping into new situations isn't a first for Cook.
“It’s pretty mind-blowing. Cause I actually took online classes at State Fair for the most part and so I’ve never really been in a campus setting like this, but it is immense and it’s fun. I love how you can kind of blend in or really stand out, it’s all up to you. I joined the Marine Corps and, you know, I didn’t know anyone going into that and I was 2,000 miles away from home and I had people screaming at me the entire time, so this is a little better than that.”
Robert and Alec spent part of his summer traveling in Europe, playing classical music.
“The two weeks in France were good coming back for us cause we were all students here at Mizzou before we went and then we got that two weeks of, you know, that bonding, of everyday rehearsals and performances and so I think coming back, I think we’re all closer friends and like all the stuff we had to experience in France, you know, finding our way through the small cities and paying with Euros without splitting checks could be a nightmare, getting lost in Paris, you know, and finding our way back. All those things, like coming back, I think we’re a much better ensemble culturally - I think we’re all better musicians now too, I would – yeah, definitely much better musicians.”
For more stories about going back to school, check out our interactive map here.
