TCNJ

12 The College of New Jersey Magazine " It feels like we were Six students trace unexpected growth — or even a bend in their 2020 P R A I R I E FUTURE DOCTOR, LIKE HIS MOTHER AND HER SIX SIBLINGS IBRAHIM AZIZ can see himself as a cardiothoracic surgeon Change agent Steven Barnhart, adjunct professor of psychology When Sophomore year, Psychology 101 He's an amazing teacher and the class completely changed what courses I wanted to take. All I thought was, might as well take a psych class — and it turned out to be something much more. I took two psychology courses last semester and two this semester. It will be so important for working with patients. NURSE-IN-TRAINING JAMIE ALLEN is likely to become a midwife Change agent Leigh-Anne Francis, professor of African and African- American studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies When Sophomore year, Introduction to Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies I know that socioeconomic classes are impacted differently in terms of access to care and health insurance. But at the patient level, I started to see a fuller picture — this person is coming in, it's a black woman with a child who's homeless and a drug addict, but after this class, you start to think, maybe she couldn't get a job because she was black and she couldn't afford to feed her kid and she's using drugs as a coping mechanism — and you see things more as survival strategies. This class really helped me build that knowledge base to know there's something more going on here. YOU MET 16 MEMBERS of the Class of 2020 as first-year students in our Spring 2017 cover story. We sat down with a few — now juniors — to catch up on what they've been up to since then. None can believe they're halfway through their third year of college, yet the rapid change they've experienced is revelatory. Gone is the lavender hair that nursing major Jamie Allen had on our cover (she was a hair model at the time) now that she's in hospitals every week. Nicole Tampone is a business school peer mentor who helps run Business 99, a class for freshmen; Darshan Kalola interned last summer at AT&T in software engineering, while Kerstin Baran is presenting research at professional conferences in Texas and Newfoundland this year. With this perceived acceleration of time comes a heightened aware- ness of planning strategically for a looming graduation. "I'm more aware of what steps I have to take for what's in the future," says Aviva Ron, a women's, gender, and sexuality studies major. At the same time, she says, "I'm just trying to remember the person I was two years ago." M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 INSIDE Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s search for family history Forbes "likes" Facebook lawyer Instant summer THE CLASS OF 2020 Tomorrow is already here

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