NYC, SL, and KC: A Sophomore Traveler's Journal

I am a traveler for life; I want to taste food and smell plants and sleep in beds unlike the food and plants and beds with which I was raised. I want to traverse oceans and deserts and meet people of different colors and languages and creeds. I also want the chance to experiment with my future career in graphic design and digital media. My life as a college traveler and professional has blossomed in only my second year at Buena Vista University (BVU), and I am going to tell you how and why.

        (Myself at Mary Poppins on Broadway.)

My second semester has been a whirlwind of airplane tickets, new office spaces, and hours spent in vans, but my first adventure led me to the Big Apple, of which I took a huge chomp. The BVU Digital Media Department held an essay competition to see who would be privileged to attend the NYC12 College Media Association Convention; I was one of four media students chosen to go. I spent four days and three nights attending sessions by day and raking through subways, parks, museums, and bakeries by night. I stood in Times Square on St. Patrick’s Day with my jaw dropped as the flashing lights and hotdog smells wafted up my nose and clung in my hair. I visited the New York Daily News, the 9/11 Memorial, and saw Mary Poppins on Broadway. All this media and design and color and concept: it inspired me to come home and do my work better at BVU. The New York opportunity lit the fire in me and helped me just know that this field is the only one for me.    

Four days after my arrival back from New York, I began a 13-month internship as the Communications Assistant at Storm Lake City Hall. I work in the office of the City Clerk designing citizen and employee newsletters, golf tournament flyers, committee logos, and metal signs for the Field of Dreams. My work gets circulated to the entire town. It’s a very self-driven position with huge repercussions if I don’t meet deadlines. Professor of Graphic Design Rebecca Frates mentioned this hands-on, real-world position to me. Working for the government is a unique situation; everything I write and all the pictures I print are scrutinized to make sure the City of Storm Lake is represented in the highest light. With this position, I have learned to work on my own, to trust my own design instincts, and to take initiative on projects.

My final travel opportunity this year was with Untitled 11, the Art League. We drove the six hours south to Kansas City and peaked into handfuls of galleries and museums for the weekend, the largest being the Nelson-Atkins; it has three floors. So many cultures and style types and sizes and colors and materials and mediums: so many distinct, intricate, and beautiful ways of expressing ideals and hopes and concepts. As I walked through the rooms and admired and gawked, I once again felt reassured that the art world is the world in which I belong. I will always be creating, interpreting, and recreating, and the travel and professional opportunities BVU has facilitated have been priceless additions to my academic endeavors. 

(Myself experimenting with perspective on the Great Lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City, Kansas.)