Reaching New Heights at UMass

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There are so many paths to take and dreams to follow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and not all of them are synonymous with the typical college experience. Alex MacDonald from the class of 2024 is a perfect example of taking a nontraditional approach to achieving his goal. 

Having grown up in Plympton, Massachusetts, Alex was accustomed to a spacious farm life in which his “nearest neighbor is probably a couple hundred feet away.” So coming to a school the size of UMass was a huge transition. Luckily for him, this was a gradual transition of sorts as his freshman year was affected by COVID-19. He was fully remote in the fall, and when he moved to Northeast residential area in the springtime, the school was not at total capacity. Despite the strange circumstances, Alex still made a good group of friends and eased into college as an environmental science major. As a sophomore, Alex lived in Southwest, which has the reputation of being the most social part of campus. He recalls it as “a culture shock with all the people I was meeting and all the parties I was going to.”

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It was also during Alex’s sophomore year that he joined UMass’ Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps in hopes of becoming a pilot after graduation. As a part of AFROTC, he had new personal training responsibilities outside of class to prepare for basic training the next summer. Alex felt “it was a lot of discipline, getting myself into good habits and everything I needed to perform well at field training.” 

Following field training, Alex was rewarded with a position training underclassmen cadets in AFROTC, leading them through the same training he completed with a newfound appreciation for how it refined his character. Now that he is a senior, Alex is the Cadet Group Commander, which means he acts as “the liaison between the cadets and the officers at our attachment.” He takes This role very seriously and is doing what he can to improve the AFROTC experience, mainly by taking steps to be more organized with record keeping and paperwork. 

Outside of AFROTC, Alex lives with friends in a house in Hadley, one town over from UMass and reminiscent of the rural setting of his childhood home. His favorite part is that he is close to the Northampton Airport so he can fly planes in his free time.