Before coming to UMass, I planned on just going into special education and that was it. Being able to take the early childhood education courses made me realize that I love working with little kids. And that I want to work with younger children with special needs. And with the facilitation of the instructors and student teaching and the center on campus, I'm able to see infant rooms, toddler rooms, all the way up to about age eight, and that's an experience I never would have gotten to have outside of UMass. Being a commuter student is crazy because you have to fit your schedule into everything, and I work on top of it. I work at the Joanne's in Hadley. I also work in Sturbridge at the Seven Hills Respite Care Center. And I also babysit. So the university is great at supporting off-campus students. They actually have an off-campus student center here in the Student Union. And they give us a place to study, a place to leave your books and backpack and everything. They have a help desk for people who need it. And they also provide a lot of resources on finding places off campus to live and work. I would tell incoming commuters to definitely utilize the resources UMass has to offer. Use the off-campus student center. Tell your professors even that you're a commuter. The climate here is very supporting for off-campus students. I'm really proud of the community here at UMass. We're all UMass Minutemen. Everyone wears the colors, shows their support, go to all the events. It's a really good community and I'm proud to be in it. |'m Brianna Stanley, class of 2020. I stand for community and tomorrow's education and I stand for UMass.