Savannah Sosa (XXX/Marymount '14, Wesleyan)

My first semester at Wesleyan was the smoothest transition into college life I could have ever asked for. Wesleyan is a place where anyone can fit in, regardless of major, your background is or your hair color.

 

As the first couple of exciting weeks of adjusting faded away, classes became more demanding. I was writing two 3-5 page papers every week. Eventually, I began to loathe my laptop - every time I opened it, I knew I had to crank out another paper. Every course I took this semester was writing intensive, thus, my essay writing improved exponentially.

 

There was one professor, in particular, who I found to be a motivating force throughout the semester. I had never taken an anthropology course before and I couldn’t have even told you what an anthropologist actually does. However, my professor made me aware of how valuable anthropology is in our lives. We studied various cultures; focusing on the ones he had experienced first-hand and conducted anthropological fieldwork. At the beginning, I was frustrated and confused, but I came to have a deep appreciation for my professor and for the class.

 

In our first class meeting, our professor walked in, introduced himself and then said “I will not accept poorly written papers. There’s nothing that annoys me more than poorly written work”. No doubt I was intimidated. This prof was expecting really good papers, if not your grade would suffer. After receiving the first two graded assignments, I was frustrated. I had put so much work into my arguments and supporting evidence and my grades didn’t reflect that effort.  Eventually, writing analytical papers became easier since I was writing them more often. By the end of the semester, I was receiving A’s on my papers – a feat I thought nearly impossible. After seeing how much my writing had improved and how quickly I seemed to grasp the course material, my professor pulled me aside after class and asked me to  strongly consider an anthropology major and to continue taking anthropology courses.

 

I came to Wesleyan knowing I wanted to be a government major but discovered I had a new academic interest. Now I’m focusing on taking government and anthropology courses. Professor Keiser helped me realize my potential in a new field of study and I will always be thankful to him for his constant encouragement and patience. Although he was a retired professor who only agreed to return to Wesleyan to teach Anthropology 101, I plan to keep in communication with him and seek his guidance.