Riley Dopps says that graduating this spring is “scary but exciting,” a feeling many of her classmates surely share. It’s the prospect of “no limit or structure set for me,” says Riley, that elicits both emotions.
A senior creative writing major, Riley feels that her writing classes “opened doors” and made her “confident that I can sell myself” in all sorts of areas when she goes on the job market in June. Best things about the English major? Class sizes and structure, says Riley. The discussion format of English courses “made information easier to absorb” and allowed the opportunity to get clarification of facts and ideas if needed. The upper-division courses, like Middle Eastern Literature, made the major relevant to current issues too.
As a former SPU soccer standout who passed on playing her senior year, Riley finds this year “bittersweet.” She’s happy to have moved on but misses the structure and “extra purpose” that athletics added to her college experience. Nevertheless, making the transition from “student-athlete” to “student” has prepared her for the equally challenging transition from “student” to “employee” that’s on the horizon. “Not everything happens for a reason,” says Riley, “but every situation has takeaways that are valuable.”
Riley has loved the small size of SPU because it’s allowed her to make friends from different areas of the university. She misses the time she spent living on campus as freshman and sophomore because it made getting where she needed to go easy and offered opportunities for casual social interaction. Now, Riley says, she needs to be more intentional about seeing, outside class, the people she’s had courses with over and over—“friends and study partners with lots to talk about.”