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Everybody has a different journey through college. Current Junior Ben has taken a winding path, but some of the most enriching and welcoming parts of this journey have been at UMass Amherst. With two alumni as parents, Ben admitted that “Originally, I was dragging my heels at the idea of going to UMass.” That changed, he said, when “I went on a tour and I saw how much the school offered. It’s so big. It excels at so many different fields.” 

Ben entered UMass as a marketing major in the Isenberg School of Management but realized that business was not a great fit for him. So he changed majors and took advantage of the Bachelor’s Degree with an Individual Concentration program (BDIC), a unique opportunity for students who want to create a major that isn’t offered at UMass. With BDIC, Ben created a major called Video Production Marketing. Still, it was not what he was looking for.

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For his sophomore year, Ben transferred to Emerson College in Boston. He enjoyed his time there but “was missing the campus, I was missing the friends that I had made, and I missed the type of people that went to UMass.” So Ben decided to transfer back to UMass to be “happier on a campus in the middle of beautiful Western Mass with these people that I really love and get along with and just have all these opportunities that I won’t have at a small school.”

Now that he is back at UMass, Ben has changed his major to theater in an effort to become a Broadway actor. He has involved himself in productions like Into the Woods and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Although he aspires to be an actor, Ben appreciates the UMass theater department’s approach of having students familiarize themselves with every aspect of the shows, including tech, costumes, and writing. This ties back to why he chose UMass in the first place; Ben sees himself as “someone who likes to dip their feet in a little bit of everything, I was really drawn in by everything that was available.” 

Not only was everything available in his education, but Ben has had some of the most accomplished professors in the world, such as award-winning playwright Connie Congdon and lighting professor Penny Remson. “The experience our professors have and the hands-on work we do in their classes make me feel incredibly prepared for the field I’m looking to go into,” he said.

Despite the complicated journey, Ben managed to pursue his dream and find his way back to his home in Amherst. Ben cites this point of his life as “the best mental shape I’ve ever been in” and believes that “it’s the best decision I’ve ever made to come back.”