Ashley Chin
For seniors, graduation is only a couple weeks away. Once again, Southern Connecticut State University will hand over hard-earned degrees to its 2010 graduating class and send them on their way into the real world.
As the semester comes to a close, seniors like Jim Whelan, a political science major, reflect on the reasons why they came to Southern in the first place, as well as their memories here.
“I chose to come to Southern because it was a good distance from home,” said Whelan. “I live in North Jersey so it’s close enough where my parents could still come, but not as often as they would if it was 20 minutes away.”
The Jersey native said he had a great time at Southern and looks forward to finding a job and finally making money.
Like Whelan, Matt Penn said his experience at Southern has been memorable, and he would not change a thing.
“My experience here at Southern has been unbelievable,” said Penn. “People always complain all the time about you know, it’s not that exciting, there’s nothing to do on the weekends and that the school is not a good school, and I mean I’ve had the best five years of my life. It took me an extra year, but the experience was unbelievable and I can’t take that back,” said Penn.
He also said he will miss all the friends he made because they have become family to him. Penn, who is a special education major, came to Southern because he had heard the education program was good.
“I wanted to be a teacher, so they had a really good education program, and my mom actually had a friend whose son who went [here] a couple years ago and he said nothing but good things, so I gave it a shot,” said Penn.
On May 28 at the Connecticut Tennis Center, graduating seniors will walk across the stage. But for senior class president Greg Tzovolos, he will also be making a speech to his fellow classmates. Like Penn, Tzovolos has formed a family of friends he cares about dearly and does not look forward to leaving behind – his fraternity.
“My best experiences at Southern came from my fraternity. Beta Mu Sigma has just been a great opportunity for me to grow as a leader, as a general communicator,” said Tzovolos. “I have a firm belief in that it has the greatest ability to bring people up and make them more prepared for the real world and anything else at college. I definitely think it’s been the most beneficial to me.”
The class president said his position and roles were a different challenge than he was used to. He said he was not used to working outside of his fraternity with other people, but it was a good learning experience because he is an interpersonal and communications major.
Tzovolos said he plans to take a year off before he finds a job in his field, but he would love to work with fraternities and sororities.
Originally, Tzovolos said he wanted to teach and was an education major when he came to Southern, but did not feel he would be able to express himself and have creative freedom. He said in his years at Southern he has fallen in love with the whole Southern community.
“I just, I don’t want to leave even now – I don’t want to graduate, I don’t want to leave, but I want to
graduate,” said Tzovolos.
Between his commitments with Beta Mu Sigma, his presidency and other activities, Tzovolos summed up his overall experience here at Southern.
“Briefly it [was] the greatest self-exploration period of my life, I learned a lot about myself that I could have never done without the fraternity and the full Southern experience and everything like that,” Tzovolos said.
