The College Years

The College Years

I began College in the Fall of 1996 at Arkansas Tech University. I started out as a Pre-Med Chemistry major. The first year and a half of college, I did not really get out and enjoy the college experience. I was still working at OK Food Market so did not have a lot of free time. The second semester of my sophomore year, I quit OK Food Market and began my internship at the Church of Christ Student Center in Russellville, AR. I also started work in the Chemistry Department at Tech.

I met several people during that first "free" semester that have helped to change my life in at least one way. Among them were Matt Hodges, Aaron Howard, and Rodney Rowland. I will get to that in a little bit.

The Church of Christ Student Center (CCSC) was going through a time of turmoil and searching during those years. The previous College Minister had left to take a position as a pulpit minister in Texas and the CCSC was looking for a new minister. During the interim, a lot of responsibility fell on the interns that lived there to help take up some of the slack and to keep the light burning. I believe that all of the interns living there during this time did exactly that. Sean Moudy and Chad Mitchell helped me in more ways than I can list. I will say that they were more spiritually expressive than I was. I tried to help clean the place up and organize events. I am a very good organizer and planner but I have a hard time expressing my feelings and faith to others. Sean and Chad did not have these inhibitions. Another person that helped us out greatly during those early months was Eric Yates. Eric was a Senior at Tech and an excellent speaker. He, in my opinion, played the role of campus minister until he graduated and moved to Texas. Last I heard, he was finishing up his divinity studies. During the Fall of 1998, the position of College Minister was offered to Chris Buxton and he accepted. Chris is now the Director of the College Ministry Program for the CCSC. Last time that I talked with individuals in Russellville, the CCSC is still doing well and thriving under the work that Chris is doing there. They hope to begin work on a new building soon. The old CCSC has been through a lot over the years (the house has been moved twice) and has started to show the signs. The projected building should be able to accomodate the growth of the center as well as many of the future goals of the group.

The Chemistry labs at Tech are in many ways rudimentary and in some ways sophisticated. Rudimentary in regards to the lack of personal storage space for those doing directed research and some of the equipment. Sophisticated in regards to some of the equipment that has recently been obtained. I have enjoyed my time working as a Teacher's Assistant in the labs and have seen many changes occur in the way Teacher's Assistants operate. When I began as a Teacher's Assistant, T/As could work one lab and get paid for 4.5 hours. This was to cover lab time with the students and then grading papers. Since then, it has changed to 3 hours to cover the lab time and grading papers. Same amount of work with less pay. Also, there have been less people that would sign up to be a T/A with this new policy in effect. I can't really blame them though. I will miss working in the labs there to some degree. I enjoyed working closely with Freshman and Sophomores in the labs and tutoring them.

My college years also allowed me to continue doing something that I truly enjoy. I have always enjoyed trying new things out and developing new methods of accomplishing goals. At Tech, I entered the Directed Research Program that the Chemistry Department offers. It had its ups and downs but something very beneficial did come out of it. I now have a job working in Chemistry that I would not have expected if not for the Directed Research Program. You can find out more about this on my Chemistry Research Page.

One of the greatest changes that has happened to me was joining the Fraternity of Alpha Kappa Lambda. I can thank Matt Hodges for this. Matt is a legacy of the Fraternity. One day I was sitting at the CCSC when Matt called me. He asked if I thought that we could start a colony of Alpha Kappa Lambda (AKL) at Tech. I told him that I thought we could. With this in mind, we contacted several people that we knew and asked if they would be interested. Aaron Howard and Rodney Rowland were two of the people that I contacted first. Both were friends and I thought they would be good to have as fraternity brothers. I was pleased that they decided to join. Since then, the colony has gone through good times and bad but it has survived and is beginning to grow again. Through the fraternity I have met numerous other brothers at other universities that I now consider to be my friends (William Oldham, Brett Justus, Taimur Shaikh, Jody May, etc.). I will go into greater detail on my fraternity page so please go there for more of my opinions on fraternities.

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