Education
Central College
I got my bachelor’s degree from Central College in Pella, Iowa. Central is a private liberal arts school, designed to give you a well-rounded education… which meant I took French, Christian Heritage, Foundations of Education, and World Music (among other random courses) on top of my technology and business classes.
It also gave someone like me, who grew up in a town of 700, a taste of a larger community. My high school graduating class had fewer than 30 people. Central, while small compared to most places, felt big to me. It was exactly what I needed to broaden my narrow view of the world without scaring me.
I started at Central in the fall of 2001 as a computer programming major. After three semesters of programming curriculum, I realized programming was too linear and detailed for me.
In the spring of my sophomore year, I switched to MIS. It was still technology-based, but it had some practical business application too. Unfortunately, I got hung up on programming again and realized the last few classes of C++, COBOL, and whatever else Central required at the time weren’t going to work for me. Cue another switch, to a straight Business Management major.
In the spring of my junior year, I finally settled on (and stuck with) Business Management with a marketing emphasis. I’d been interested in marketing since a marketing class I took in high school, and I liked the idea of a marketing degree, but Central didn’t offer one at the time.
Also in my junior year, I got really involved with the campus TV show, Dutch Mania Television, aka DMTV. My tech skills, plus great instruction from the acclaimed Marty Feeney, landed me the executive director role my senior year. One of my favorite pieces of work was the DMTV intro I made that year. My video work also landed me an internship producing a TV spot for Central’s 150th Anniversary Gala, which I voiced as well.
Luckily, Central’s liberal arts core makes up a good share of the required courses regardless of major, so I’d already finished those. I was also lucky that my two semesters of MIS included enough business classes that I wasn’t too far behind my classmates. Sadly, “not too far behind” still meant 17 to 19 credit hours a semester for my last three semesters to graduate on time.
In the end, I finished with a Business Management degree (with a marketing emphasis) and a slew of knowledge I never intended to learn. Looking back, I can see how the variety of courses rounded out my education. Even more important, they taught me to think horizontally and make connections between topics that seemed completely unrelated.
It’s that ability, to calm the chaos of thought particles and form logical deductions, that I really thank Central for.
Courses I took