[day • November 7, 1997
Lifestyles
)n The Road Again ...
eekend road trips help students escape from the B-CS blues
By Chris Martin
Staff writer
jiereis perhaps no greater rite of passage or tra-
jition that defines the college experience like the
nadtrip. Historians place the first collegiate road
'around 384 B.C., when a few of the students at
lAcademy decided to load up a donkey and cruise
hSparta at 3 o’clock in the morning,
idtrips provide escape from the rut of familiari-
gachance to haunt a new beat for relationships,
idents often reward themselves by getting out of
lifter a big test or a stressful project. Other times,
^itsare enticed by a big game or concert lying just
dthe horizon.
[Page, a junior political science major, ven-
olubbock two weekends ago on a football week-
N trip.
salways fun to party in different towns and meet
«and friends who go to school there,” Page said.
i hster is a freshman at Texas Tech this year, so it was
rchance to visit her and catch up.”
ling smack dab in the middle of the vast state of
jmay be a deterrent to the casual road tripper
Jgfor exotic locations. For the determined, how-
elexas countryside provides a backdrop for a
bid getaway.
Jvasn’t looking forward to the seven-hour drive at
iPage said. "But it actually went by really fast. I en-
Ithe pretty country; there’s lots of small towns.”
(etime spent on the road often may outweigh the
entatthe destination. Page said certain factors
made the long trip worth the final destination.
“We ran into a couple (of) Aggies I knew, so we got
to party with Tech and A&M people,” Page said.
Page shared the journey with a high-school friend.
Being in the car with someone for extended periods of
time can test one’s nerves. Road trips demand com
promise, no matter who the passengers are.
“She didn’t like the music I liked, and I didn’t like the
music she liked, so basically we decided on driver’s
preference,” Page said. “We took turns driving so the
other one could sleep if we got tired. That way our mu
sic wouldn’t bother each other. Also she smoked the en-
//
Where we going, man?"
"I don't know, but we gotta go.
- Jack Kerouac,
On the Road
tire way up there, and I was dying.”
Ana Palousek, a sophomore entomology major, took
a weekend trip to Mexico last spring with nearly thirty
friends to celebrate a student election victory. She said
although the path going down can be fun, the trip back
is often trying.
“We got into fights on the way back,” Palousek said.
“Everyone was hungover or irritable.”
Page said the escape from College Station was not as
easy as he thought it would be.
“I wanted to get out of College Sta
tion and away from all the construc
tion going on,” Page said. “But every
small town we went through had
something under construction. I
think it was a big plot.”
David Feldman, a junior speech
communication major, shared
Page’s disdain for seeing the same
town every day.
“This town is not a bastion of
entertainment by any means,” Feld
man said. “When the opportunity
arises where we can have a mediocre
time out of town, I would rather do
that then have a mediocre time in
town.”
Feldman had more than a mediocre time in New Or
leans last spring. He and two friends went to see the
Dave Matthews Band play an acoustic set with Tim
Reynolds in the French Quarter.
“We heard about it over the Internet,” Feldman said.
“It was basically my idea to go with two of my friends
who are big Dave Matthews fans. The weekend was
open, so we decided to go on the spur of the moment.”
Most road trips start as whims shot from the hip.
Luckily, Feldman’s whim payed off.
“We went down there with no tickets,” Feldman said.
“We got the last ticket available at the ticket window,
then started looking for people who had extra tickets.
A lady came up to us and said she had two extra tickets.
We bought them at face value. All the tickets happened
to be eighth row center, right beside each other.”
Feldman said the journey was just as important as
the destination because of the close bonds he formed
with his passengers.
“We found out a lot about each other because we
were in a car together for seven hours,” Feldman said.
“We talked about our different viewpoints on certain
things like religion, what we want to do in the future and
things we saw on the way.”
Given the chance to do it all over again, Feldman
said he would in a heartbeat.
“I would do it this weekend if I could,” Feldman said.
“I’d like to go to Chicago. It would be a lot of driving, but
you could see a Bulls game or Cubs game or even a good
[xas A&M students stay in school as long as necessary to get the job done
By Brandi Ballard
Staff writer
ollege — as the T-shirt says, it is the
best four, five or six years you will
never remember.
days it is difficult for a student to
j-Jatein four years. One must allow time
.«• jyrops, changes of major and skipping
Jgo drinking.
imany students follow the core cur-
n given in their course catalog.
fCopeland, a senior psychology ma-
a member of the Class of ’94. That
bmake him an eighth-year senior,
mnsider myself a six-year senior be-
I took two years off,” Copeland said,
island attended A&M right after high
|o!,but after three and a half years and
ijor changes, he was not as far into his
plan as he had hoped.
I
D are
In 1993, he dropped out and moved to
Colorado Springs, where he worked as a wait
er and a bartender. He then moved to Vail
and taught snow-skiing lessons.
In the fall of 1996, Copeland came back to
College Station to finish his education and
graduate from Texas A&M.
If all goes well, Copeland will graduate in
May with a psychology degree.
“It was the major that was going to let me
graduate the fastest and I had the most hours
for,” he said.
His advice to underclassmen is to not
change majors if you want to graduate in
four years.
Trey Kinnaird, a senior computer science
major, has been at A&M for six years because
he has co-oped while going to school.
“I would go back home and work a se
mester to pay for my next semester at col
lege,” Kinnaird said.
He has co-oped six semesters out of the
past twelve semesters because he did not
want to take out any student loans. When he
was working, he did not take any classes, and
u If you’re in college, you
ought to enjoy it.”
Blake Jones
Sophomore English major
he committed himself to work.
At first, he worked at a management in
formation systems company that manufac
tured electronics. He later moved on to IBM
and worked as a computer programmer.
Kinnaird said he plans to work at IBM over
Christmas break and hopes to get a job there
after he graduates in August.
Kinnaird suggests students plan out all
their classes and their graduation plan so
they know where they stand at all times.
“Look at your schedule realistically,” Kin
naird said. “The graduation plans in the cat
alogs are sometimes unrealistic.”
Blake Jones, a sophomore English major,
plans to graduate in five years. He said he
thinks it is important to take it easy and do
his best.
He said with so many students attending
college, the requirements have been raised
and it takes more time and energy.
“Ifyou’re in college, you ought to enjoy it,”
Jones said.
Amy Pittsford, a senior education major,
just began her fifth year of college. She at
tended Blinn College for two years and then
transferred to A&M.
“Part of the reason I did not graduate in
four years was because I had no idea of
what I wanted to do when I graduated,”
Pittsford said.
Pittsford said another reason was she nev
er took more than fourteen hours in a se
mester, and she never took a summer-school
class. She would go home and work full-time
instead of going to school.
“A lot of people need more than four
years to get a degree,” Pittsford said. “They
have added more hours needed to graduate
than before.”
Allowing five years for school can give stu
dents a chance to relax and take a moderate
load of classes. This allows them to give their
best to a few classes instead of spreading
themselves thin.
Perhaps then the T-shirt would state: Col
lege. The best four, five or six years you will
ever experience.
t O
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