Elizabeth Ann Collins University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits you Copyright ©2015 Elizabeth Ann Collins Follow this and additional works at: https
UNDECIDED
When my parents climbed into their car and drove away down 23rd Street, they disappeared from sight, and for the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead, which I wiped away with my jeans as I scanned a street full of families unloading laundry baskets, blankets, hair dryers, and childhood stuffed animals, while fathers hauled mini-fridges, televisions, and boxes full of books I sat on the steps, holding the door open, trying to name the strange ache in my gut as I watched this leaving and the bustle of everyone else around me.
The decision to attend the University of Northern Iowa was not a simple one I always knew I would be going to college My parents both went to Iowa State
University is where they met My oldest brother attended Iowa State University, and two uncles and a cousin also went there My other older brother, however, chose a different path and enrolled in culinary school at Johnson and Wales University.
Denver, Colorado So when it was my turn to decide where to go, I knew I really could go anywhere—just so long as I went somewhere
During my college search, I was a junior at John F Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Kennedy is an affluent school in an affluent city in Iowa, a background that shaped my early college options.
In 2015, the school was ranked No 1 on U.S News & World Report’s Top Iowa Schools list (Best Education Schools) My family had just moved to Iowa from a rural town in Maryland, where I attended a high school that was littered with trailers and didn’t make any U.S rankings.
Even with the headlines about rankings in the background, the wealth of opportunities I found at Kennedy astounded me I joined the marching band, the chess club, the mahjong club, and the junior varsity bowling team, picked up some kung fu, and managed to keep decent grades The opportunity that defined my experience was the chance to explore such a diverse range of activities, each one helping me grow academically and personally and shaping my path forward.
Japanese class captivated me the most; my older brother and I grew up watching a lot of anime, and I loved the chance to know more than him about our shared interest Leaving Maryland’s diverse cultural landscape for Iowa’s relative homogeneity sharpened my craving for difference, and Japan stood out as the most striking contrast.
The class was taught by the most enthusiastic gaijin I’ve ever seen—a short man in his mid-thirties who outpaced his small frame with pure energy In addition to teaching Japanese language courses at all levels—including a few AP classes—he oversaw a very popular after-school Japanese culture club, taught introductory Aikido, coordinated an exchange program with a Japanese high school, and even organized a trip to Japan for a select group of students I was one of those students fortunate enough to go on this trip.
Traveling abroad for the first time, I was struck by Tokyo's modern bustle, Kyoto's timeless charm, and a tiny village in Oita, all of which offered an entirely unique aesthetic—from rice paddies to pagodas and students bowing to teachers' cars every morning After two weeks overseas, my Japanese improved enough to reach level three, and I realized I had fallen in love with the language and culture, driven partly by specialized knowledge, the contagious enthusiasm of my sensei, and a teenage urge to rebel against the ordinary Studying this culture revealed how many intertwined factors—language, genetics, history, and popular culture—shape a society, a realization that felt like a natural extension of my high school Japanese class When I began thinking about college, my path was clear: continue studying Japanese, earn a bachelor’s degree, and join the JET program to teach English in Japan, a plan my sensei had recommended by sharing his own path It felt good to have direction, even though four years could change everything before I could apply to JET.
On my first college visit to the University of Northern Iowa, just about an hour away, I found it smaller and more manageable than the nearby University of Iowa We joined an official campus tour, and as we passed the campanile a golf cart rolled up with UNI’s mascot, TC the Cat, who greeted us with high-fives I felt a wave of teenage embarrassment and irritation On the drive home I skimmed the informational materials and thought the student ambassadors looked like cheerleaders—blonde and perky—and noted that Japanese wasn’t offered there.
In 2005, with the Internet still relatively new, my mom and I marveled at how easily we could search for colleges online, since online information was faster and more up-to-date than printed catalogs I found Minnesota State University Moorhead, which matched my simple criteria: a reasonably sized campus, a B.A in East Language Studies, and Japanese language classes as part of an Asian Studies program The school's dragon mascot sealed the deal for me We drove seven hours north for a summer campus visit, talked with two professors, checked out the study abroad office, and joined an energetic campus tour On the way home, I gushed about how perfect the school seemed, while my mom warned me it was quite far from home and could get very cold there.
Coe College, a small private institution near downtown Cedar Rapids, seemed an obvious next stop because of its proximity to home On the campus tour, the Kohawk mascot popped up just as TC's had done, though he didn't press for high-fives The guides boasted about the school's reputation, and the campus site describes Coe as a nationally recognized, four-year, coeducational liberal arts institution delivering superior educational experiences since 1851 I was drawn to the idea of joining a liberal arts community—partly for the prestige that age and reputation confer In 2006, enrollment stood around 1,400 students, about 600 fewer than my high school, which made Coe feel exclusive, a sentiment echoed by its tuition When I received my acceptance to Coe, it sealed the impression that this small private college could offer a distinctive, focused educational experience.
Getting a $12,000 first-year scholarship felt exciting, but I soon realized it was a standard aid package given to most incoming freshmen to soften the near $40,000 price tag for tuition, room and board, and those pesky student fees I could see the fear in my parents’ eyes as I shared the Japanese exchange student community at Coe and the possibility of majoring in Asian Studies there, and I really felt that $1,400 was not too small.
During another look at Moorhead, still a top contender, we found a cold, rainy March day and a tour guide who was noticeably less enthusiastic, making me wonder how miserable January would be If I felt this cold and miserable in March, I can’t imagine January The seven-hour drive home felt endless, with snow in the fields along the interstate turned to a slushy brown and clouds that spit rain on us “Well, what do you think?” Mom asked, and we agreed to cross Moorhead off the list, along with a handful of other contenders: Truman State University, Winona State University, and Cornell College.
After weighing Coe and UNI, I reluctantly suggested a final visit to UNI On the second tour, there was no mascot, and my mom and I used the moment to explore the study abroad office Reading the brochures, I was overwhelmed by the promise of opportunities, especially programs in Austria that appealed to me In the end, the lure of more opportunities for less money won over the appeal of an exclusive liberal arts niche Yet over the next six years, my path proved to be far more grounded in liberal arts than I could have imagined.
After I decided on the University of Northern Iowa, I learned that my grandmother, Shirley (Soeth) Pfeifer, had also attended UNI—then the Iowa State Teacher’s College—from 1949 to 1952 I received my housing assignment for Lawther Hall and discovered she had lived there for two years as well Sitting on the steps on moving day, feeling a bit abandoned, I imagined what it must have been like for her 57 years ago.
ANTHROPOLOGY
To assemble the sandwich, I piled a generous scoop of the meat mixture onto a bun, drizzled zigzag lines of ketchup and mustard, added two pickle slices, and topped it with the upper bun The sandwich rested on a red-and-white checkered sheet of paper, and I wrapped the short edge over the sandwich, folded in the adjacent corners, and finally tucked the far corner underneath so the package stayed neatly in place.
“You’re gonna have to get faster at that,” my boss told me I placed the Maid-Rite in a basket and handed it to the customer
The summer after my freshman year at UNI I had signed up for a summer class,
"Our Musical Heritage" was one of the Liberal Arts Core class options, and I believed that getting these LAC requirements out of the way early would be best But I wasn’t prepared for the financial reality of a summer course: I had already taken out loans in my first year and expected to borrow more over the next four years I thought loan money could cover the summer course fees, but with dormitories unavailable during the summer and any housing requiring real cash, I faced the hard truth that I would need a summer job to cover living and course costs.
Maid-Rite, a loose-meat sandwich restaurant in downtown Cedar Falls, had a
Seeing a “Help Wanted” sign in the window, I applied because I needed income and because I wanted to prove I could learn quickly and treat customers well My first job after arriving at UNI was in a student dining center during freshman year, a gig my mom encouraged and my friends were taking as well Campus jobs like these are handed out to anyone willing to work, and I earned about $6.75 an hour rinsing rice for the Wok station and washing dishes It was simple labor, but by the end of my freshman year, food service and customer service became my primary hands-on experience, which made my new job at Maid-Rite feel like a natural next step with similar pay and the same tedious duties Yet I stood at the start of a new transition in my college career—thinking about life away from home, away from high school, and away from the path I had once confidently foreseen After two semesters as an Asian Studies major, I began to lose the sense of community I had felt around Japanese language and culture, and I started to open up to other possibilities, grappling with the uncertainty of college life and the daily reminder of what it means to live with that uncertainty.
I found an apartment at the Wesley Foundation, the campus ministry I had been volunteering with The three-story building sits across from campus, and my third-floor unit is essentially a narrow hallway that leads to a closet-sized room the city had barely approved as a rentable living space.
An apartment on campus was designated for international students needing temporary housing while moving to a new place or preparing to fly home, and since no one was living there at the moment, I moved in to play the role of the poor and helpless A single mattress on the floor barely fit, with a small computer desk squeezed beside it; the hallway counted as extra space, just enough for a mini fridge and a small bookshelf The game room, linked to my unit, was far larger and usually filled with student activities during the school year, from Halloween pumpkin carving to Academy Awards viewing parties, while students gathered daily to watch movies, play games, or linger in unproductive ways In the summer, with fewer students around, that game room became my living room, a hodgepodge of donated items and mixed eras By 2007 it included a pool table missing a leg, a ping-pong table without a net, an enormous vintage television, two stained faux-suede couches with broken legs, a brown plaid couch from the sixties, two broken pinball machines, several tables and chairs, a boom box, a cabinet of cassette tapes, a drum set missing a snare, a manual stationary bike, and a popcorn machine It was a multi-era haven for the poor, and that thrifted, imperfect aesthetic defined my summer.
My grandma, who involved herself in a different campus ministry, the
She found work during her student days, and her financial situation was different from mine In 1949, the year she enrolled, tuition was $33 per quarter—about $300 today when adjusted for inflation By the time she graduated in 1951, it had risen to $35 When I enrolled in 2006, tuition was $3,056 per semester and had climbed to $3,675 by graduation To help pay for her education, grandma worked as a resident assistant, taking care of a rowdy group of girls called Shirl’s. -**Support Pollinations.AI:**🌸 **Ad** 🌸 Struggling with tuition fees like in your story? [Support our mission](https://pollinations.ai/redirect/kofi) to make AI tools accessible for student creators!
Her early work as an art lab assistant and her volunteer effort printing the art covers for The Pen, the student literary magazine, provided valuable hands-on experience with students and let her practice the art skills she would one day teach These experiences not only sharpened her craft but also kindled a lifelong love of the humanities and a deep appreciation for higher education.
Like my grandma, I’ve accumulated campus roles that connect learning to life—editing UNI’s current literary magazine Inner Weather, tutoring in an astronomy lab, and years of volunteering at a student center—experiences that reinforced my appreciation for higher education Yet as a freshman, the dialogue centered more on ROI, with tuition and financial investment far higher than in her era My grandma’s teaching degree was practical, but the real value showed up in moments like listening to the radio with friends on a Friday night or seeing her artwork gracing the cover of the student paper When debt climbs into tens of thousands of dollars, those meaningful experiences suddenly become harder to justify, and the burden can make any eager student pause That summer I paused often.
Figure 2 Shirley Pfeifer, née Soeth, left, screen printing covers of The Pen, 1950
The Maid-Rite is a tiny restaurant with a single long bar where I did everything as a server, and my quiet, keep-to-myself nature didn’t translate into tips, since I earned about $4.75 an hour with the rest made in tips; when the restaurant was loud and busy it was a stressful scene, and I wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else One afternoon, while we weren’t very busy, I overheard a customer—the anthropology professor named Dr Gaff who had just moved to UNI—and I jumped in: “You’re an anthropology professor? What do you teach? I just declared an anthropology major!” My coworker was shocked, saying, “I’ve never heard you say that many words.” After weeks of suffering at a miserable job, I had finally met someone I could connect with in Dr Gaff.
Anthropology is often described as a discovered major—students typically aren’t taught what anthropology is in high school and must discover it on their own in college I encountered anthropology in my second semester through a course called Human Origins, which I took as another required Liberal Arts Core class This experience opened my eyes to the field’s relevance and helped me see how anthropology fits within a broad undergraduate curriculum.
Within the Life: The Natural World section of the LAC catalog, the Technology category described an introductory biology course on the physical and prehistoric development of humankind, including primate and human evolution, modern races, and archaeological cultures—words that sounded abstract at first, yet intriguing The first class changed everything: the professor, a lively middle-aged man, kept insisting that anthropology applies to nearly everything and illustrated it with a practical example “If you’re building an airplane and must decide how big the seats should be,” he said, moving around the room and sketching a messy interior on the whiteboard, “you’d hire a physical anthropologist who knows human bodies and their dimensions to figure it out.” I was hooked and never missed a class College opened a whole new world for me, even though I ended up with a C-.
I never earned strong grades as an undergraduate, not simply because I was lazy—though an argument could be made—but for two reasons First, as a student who naturally excelled in grade school, I never really learned valuable study skills because I didn’t need them: I paid attention in class, did the homework, and didn’t get distracted by sports or popularity My freshman year at UNI, the Academic Learning Center offered a single-credit course designed to teach a variety of study skills, including speed reading and note taking, and I signed up for the course as soon as I saw the flyer because I wanted to succeed and was willing to do whatever it took After about three classes of learning how to fold a piece of paper in half, hot-dog ways, to quiz myself about what I’d just read, and practicing how to skim subtitles before reading more closely, I stopped going The second reason for my unfortunate grades, however, was that just like Shirley Pfeifer before me, I was involved in everything— I was the extracurricular queen.
Extracurricular describes activities outside the standard curriculum or beyond the normal routine In everyday usage, the word "extra" signals something optional or nonessential—yet universities consistently encourage students to participate in these enriching, nonmandatory experiences This emphasis on extracurricular involvement aligns with UNI’s mission, one of the university's four main emphases, which underscores the value of extending learning beyond the classroom.
Participation in extracurricular activities helps develop the life of the university community as an effective educational force, with campus clubs and organizations playing a central role Students often discover new passions through groups they hadn’t previously considered, and those discoveries can lead to a new major or even a career they might not have imagined The relationships formed through extracurricular involvement are meaningful, with lifelong partnerships often beginning in settings like dance teams, intramural sports, or philosophy clubs This fellowship not only bonds students to one another but also strengthens their connection to the school A practical reason to engage in extracurriculars is resume-building through relevant experience, especially when you take on leadership roles or contribute in meaningful ways.
“project”—and especially when you have not much more work experience to show than
In Fall 2009, while working as a dishwasher at the Rialto, I joined UNI’s Anthropological Association as soon as I learned that anthropology existed I was eager to connect with fellow students who shared my interest in the field, and even as I navigated my own uncertainty, I was already on track to add valuable buzzwords to my humble resume.
ENGLISH
It was drizzling as I waited outside the Hull bus station in England, the pale drizzle pinching the air and making the neon reflections on the pavement shimmer My backpack felt stuffed with my laptop and a small stack of books, including the Penguin edition of a beloved classic that I kept close for comfort on the road The bus stop hummed with distant engines, the muted chatter of fellow travelers, and the soft patter of rain turning the approach into a blur I checked my route, rehearsed my plan in my head, and watched for the moment when the next bus would pull in, ready to begin whatever lay ahead.
The Sagas of the Icelanders was no less than a tome—a hoodie, a Union Jack mug
Wrapped in a hoodie with a box of tea, I sipped Tango and double-checked the numbers on my boarding pass, a habit honed by travel, yet this felt different—an important bus ride to London that would lead to the eight-hour flight home.
By the middle of my second year, despite declaring my love for anthropology and choosing it as my major, my grades were revealing that I wasn’t thriving in those courses I loved reading about different cultures and discussing what aspects of those cultures reveal about what it means to be human Yet, just as I had learned in field school, gathering the data needed to understand those cultures required meticulous note-taking, chart-making, and analysis At the same time, I began to feel the tension between my enthusiasm for the subject and the hard work of rigorous fieldwork, prompting me to reassess how I was approaching my studies and whether I could align my passion with the demands of the major.
I was struggling with the scientific aspects of anthropology, yet I earned A’s in my English courses, and I explored the major by taking fun classes before declaring it, skipping the general surveys to dive into topic‑driven studies like Old English Language and Literature and an Asian Literature seminar Those courses opened my eyes to a shared core between anthropology and English: a deep interest in human nature and culture, even though their methods differ Analyzing an Anglo‑Saxon ship burial reveals artifacts, artwork, weapons, currency, and cultural values, while studying Beowulf and other Anglo‑Saxon texts can illuminate life aspects that no collection of artifacts can capture Still, the underlying motivation in both disciplines is to understand a culture and, from that understanding, make more substantiated claims about humanity.
English isn’t only about humanity; in creative writing, language is used to tell stories and craft aesthetics about any subject, from the natural world to the supernatural In the creative writing workshops I took, I read stories ranging from the day-to-day life of a businessman to a vampire horror tale, and we discussed practical techniques for good writing as well as the evolving relationship between author and reader The question of authorial intent—what meaning the author aims to communicate and whether that intention matters to our own interpretations—often comes up in literature classes, but when we become authors ourselves the perspective shifts and we question whether we even control our own intentions These two perspectives—creation and analysis—are two sides of the same English coin: they focus on human artistic expression across subjects and ultimately reflect the human mind This is a strong reason English sits in the humanities and helps explain the close connection between English and anthropology, a connection I felt even more during my semester in England.
One reason I chose UNI was its study abroad options, so I attended the Study Abroad Fair in early fall to explore possibilities After recently declaring an English major, I focused on England and found the most affordable option with the University of Hull, which had a contract with UNI allowing students to pay only UNI tuition, making housing the main additional expense Wary of accruing interest on my student loans, I decided this would be the best option I had never heard of Hull before, but I was sure that anywhere in England couldn’t be bad.
I had fallen asleep on a bus from London and woke as we rolled into Hull, where the city looked more like a modern urban slum than the picturesque England I had imagined from Romantic and Victorian literature The streets were lined with familiar take-away chains—Pizza Hot, Subilicious, Great Wall—and brick alleys were covered in graffiti while the sidewalks were speckled with cigarette butts Shortly after classes began, an American student who had spent a semester at Hull warned me to watch out for the 'chavs,' a label she described as akin to American white trash but louder, younger, and more aggressive.
I had never read about the chavs of Thornfield Hall, nor of King Arthur’s dangerous encounter with the chavs
The classes I took were not necessarily reflective of the traditional English canon
I had more standard class options, but as usual I opted for a more unusual selection
“British Children’s Literature” offered a critical look at Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the
These courses map how children’s literature and broader literary traditions evolved, from Pooh and Harry Potter signaling a nascent stage of children’s fiction to The Other Victorians, a study of Victorian works that challenged mainstream norms and featured writers like Wilkie Collins and Oscar Wilde, whose indecency trials stained his reputation and unsettled his standing in the canon The final class, Literature and Culture of the Vikings, blended reading Viking texts with clear lessons about who the Vikings really were, much as my Old English studies at UNI did.
While in England, during the professor's lecture on the Battle of Stamford Bridge, he could tell us exactly how to visit the site: take bus 10 from Piccadilly, just east of York, about seven miles away.
At the UNI English major, students take two surveys of English literature: one from Old English to Early Modernity and another from Romantics to Post-Colonialism Presenting such broad and complex historical spans is inherently challenging, and the question of whether Dickens better represents his day than Collins or Wilde highlights ongoing debates about the English literary canon But these survey courses are not meant to stand as immovable pillars of literary greatness; instead, they form a historical foundation upon which all other literature courses—ranging from specialized seminars to modern and digital literature classes—can be built.
C.P Snow’s label 'intellectual Luddites' described scholars who would have nothing to do with science and who would wish the future didn’t exist; those 'restricted and constrained' minds, he argued, would find little sympathy in UNI’s English department, as I experienced it In the same vein, the Old English class and the Asian studies offerings demonstrated a willingness to engage with new knowledge rather than cling to a nostalgic past.
In an American Literature seminar, the curriculum carried a strong cultural emphasis, using readings to illuminate how contemporary writers connect with their readers I was pleased to see that the England courses I took—anchored by Snow, Leavis, and the traditional English literary canon—also emphasized the same ongoing contemporary cultural awareness At the same time, there was a clear devotion to the nation’s literary heritage, much of which was tourism-based.
During spring break, two American friends and I planned a two-week loop around England focused on literary stops for our English-major studies In Stratford-upon-Avon we visited Shakespeare’s childhood home, a light-tan half-timbered house dating mainly to the 16th century, though ongoing restoration work keeps it standing We entered the modern tourist center and bought tickets for £23, a price that surprised our tight budget, but we paid to honor Shakespeare’s legacy The house buzzed with tourists from all nationalities, and I watched a Japanese family ask a stranger to take their photo, as fascinated by Shakespeare’s international impact as I was by the house itself.
His work was transformative for English language and literature, laying the groundwork for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century English literary canon, and C.P Snow’s Two Cultures even coins Shakespeare as the literary analogue to the Second Law of Thermodynamics to show how scientists and writers can be baffled by each other’s foundational texts Yet true cross-cultural appreciation hinges not on mastering every discipline but on a shared purpose, and for Snow that purpose is to improve the quality of life for all people He argues that the utilization and practical command of science are as important as its pursuit of understanding the natural world, a belief that sharpens the divide between the Two Cultures by suggesting that scientists, who command nature, have a greater purpose than writers and artists who seek expression.
In one of the most cited phrases from Snow’s essay, he writes that scientists naturally have “the future in their bones” (11) In contrast, he says that traditional
Literary culture often reacts to science with a longing that the future might not exist, as George Orwell’s 1984 is described as “the strongest possible wish that the future should not exist” and J D Bernal’s World Without War imagines a utopian future in which science eliminates the need for war, illustrating how the Two Cultures can engage in a productive give-and-take between science and the humanities These examples show how the exchange between scientific optimism and cautionary literary realism helps in making informed decisions about ethically employing future technology, since a blind push forward without considering potential consequences can lead to disastrous outcomes echoed in dystopian fiction Yet this does not mean that novelists or humanities scholars wish the future away; rather, a future that still honors Shakespeare alongside contemporary voices—even if they challenge the traditional canon—is preferable as the world progresses.