Students recall summer

By Andrea Vukcevic
Features Editor

The fall semester is beginning with a record number of freshmen, new student housing and a flashy charter bus. While UNCP continued its makeover this summer, students worked, traveled, went to summer school or simply enjoyed life.

Junior Abi French was a research assistant at the Indiana University School of Nursing
and studied behavioral cancer.

“I got a lot of research experience which I think is going to help me in grad school,” she said.

French also went to Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and Rusted Root concerts.

West Hall resident advisor Doug Smith went to Sweden and Denmark for 12 days and returned for an ROTC advancement leadership camp at Ft. Lewis, Wash., where he learned field tactics and maneuvers. He also worked at a camp for troubled children and went home to Michigan to visit family.

Graduate student Gautam Nayer worked as a customer service representative this summer at a Staples in West Palm Beach, Fla. and at a medical lab for a couple of weeks in Fort Lauderdale. It was there that he got his first managerial experience and decided to go back to school.

“Medicine is a very dynamic field,” he said. “If I want to make money and to advance, I need a grad degree.”

Tired of the big city and ready for a change, Nayer began surfing the internet and decided to attend UNCP’s Masters of Public Administration program.

UNCP tennis team player Shannon Gentry ventured from her hometown of Mt. Airy, N.C. to work as a camp counselor for 12 weeks in Orson, Penn.

Gentry especially liked living in another state because she had never been away from home for such a long time. Teaching tennis to kids 7-17 years old forced her to perfect her strokes and helped keep her in shape.

“I would suggest everyone do something like that at least once because it is good experience to have and makes you grow as a person,” she said.

The Pine Needle’s assistant editor, Mark Schulman, spent 10 days in Virginia Beach with old friends from the Navy and then flew to Dallas to see his best friend. While there, he saw a Texas Rangers baseball game and went to the horse races to “run the ponies.”

Regardless of what they did, some students returned ready to learn or just get a change of scenery. “I’m glad to be back because I felt like I was stagnating,” said Schulman.