Twenty-one English majors and several minors graduated from Millikin University in 2004. As you can see from the following profiles, the graduating seniors of 2004 will be pursuing careers in a wide range of opportunities including high school teaching, journalism, law school, graduate school, writing, editing, publishing and with non-profit organizations.

Amy Soderberg
Rolling Meadow, IL

writing major
&
literature major

To begin, I was born at 6:58pm in Alexian Brother's Hospital in Elk Grove, Illinois. Soon after my parents moved us from their apartment to a townhouse in Hoffman Estates. My family and I lived there until I was in second grade and then we moved to Rolling Meadows, Illinois were we've lived ever since.

Growing up I always spent my time deep within my own imagination and often encouraged my friends to play along in the worlds I would create. As a kid, I mostly liked solitary daydreaming and playing with my Barbie's.

I can hardly remember a time when I didn't want to be a writer. Before I even knew how to write, I was pretending to by jotting down scribbles on notebook paper. Reading has also played an important role in my life. My favorite books growing up were Charlotte's Web, The Cat in the Hat, and Five Beds for Bitsy and as I got older by book collection began to grow to gigantic proportions.

After graduating high school, I had no trouble picking a major and wanted to study both creative writing and literature. At first I was encouraged to just choose one so I picked creative writing but after a few semesters I decided to pick up literature as a second major.

Although I mostly focused on my courses, I have also gotten involved in Alpha Phi Omega, the national service fraternity, and I have become a member of Sigma Tau Delta.

I have loved my experience at Millikin because the small school atmosphere has allowed me to get to know my peers and professors on a more personal level. The English classes that I have taken have always been very interesting to me and I feel I have gotten a lot out of my education.

I'm not quite sure what the future holds for me, but I do know that I won't settle for anything less than what makes me happy. I do however plan on writing a novel and after my super fun Writing For Children Roundtable, I have also considered attempting to get my children's book published.

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A monkey, two cats and cookie dough ice cream as a catalyst for wordplay, I would say that this endeavor, so simple, is how a majority of my jocular tales come about.

Born in Decatur, IL in 1980, a caesarean section on June 11, to a diabetic mother, that, in itself, deserves cannonization, in my mother's eyes, a tale with bits of bemoaning, but, we moved to
Florida and I learned to play in the sun with the lizards and crocodiles, auburn hair flowing in a humid December, til a divorce distilled my play, and back to Decatur I came, hair turning cole
black, pale visage, until fourteen when I was with my mother again, in Michigan in the white birch trees.

After an attempt at the psychological sciences, finding that I was not capable of sanity, I came to Millikin with an unlikely pursuit, with quills and ink blots on my fingers and nose, and was told to sit and listen, but pipe up now and again for a thought, to be gleaned by the curiosity of the professors driving my predilictions into art.

So, they say, at a certain time, with students crabbing at my irregular rhyme, I became a "writer" of sorts, talking of sports and of mildew, along with the cats, sonograms, fishes, and vats of teeny burbs that prattle. Collage rutting along in the shadows with, what a tattle tale, of all the goings on and student proclivities it speaks in a singular fashion.

At this juncture, one would assume that there is a vistage to which I am alighting, but, no, just salary with benefits and a light amount of druggery, that is all the expectation, until graduate school, of course. For, to tell a tidbit, a grab at Millikin, with my drab tellings would not suffice, so, to tell it like it is, it is whatever to wanna make it, with hard work at the core.

Thank you for bearing with this internal dispute of rhyme and languid display; remember that intuition of yours, and listen, for the acoustics can be very telling.

—Heather Aymer

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Greetings! I just wanted to let you all know that I am offically employed for the 2004-2005 school year. Amazingly enough I am remaining in the Decatur area and teaching at Mt. Zion High School. I am extremely excited about this great opportunity. I also get the title "play director" bestowed upon me. I suppose I shall survive. I just wanted to share my sense of relief!

Hopefully, I will have a chance to see you all at graduation.

Thanks for four great years, Jackie

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Rachel Foszcz

writing minor
&
theatre

I came to Millikin University as a Theatre major. As my freshman year progressed, I found that I had some time free to take other classes. I wanted to do something more than just earn a major.   Since I loved reading and writing, I decided that earning a minor in English was the perfect thing to do! Having a Theatre major and an English minor proved to be quite helpful. These two areas of study have many similarities, and they each helped me to strengthen my knowledge in the other field.

I loved my English classes at Millikin. All of my professors were fantastic! I learned so much from them and they were always extremely helpful whenever I needed assistance. My favorite English classes were Creative Writing, American Film, and International Film. I loved writing poems for Creative Writing, and the feedback allowed me to see how I could strengthen my work overall. In the film courses, it was so neat to watch the different International and American films and seeing how the medium of film has developed over the years.

My favorite project throughout my years at Millikin was my James Millikin Scholars project. For this project, I took the Spanish Renaissance play Life is a Dream and adapted it into a modern day screenplay. Then, with the help of the Film Association of Millikin, I was able to make the screenplay come to life in a unique film. This project allowed me to use all of the knowledge that I had gained from my English courses and put it to practical use. It was the most challenging project I had ever taken on, and it was also the most exhilarating project to see get accomplished.

For the future, I would like to continue in the field of film. I will be moving to Chicago and continuing my acting career, while, of course, continuing to read and write stories and poems in my free time.

My advice to future English students would be to always follow your dreams.   Use your emotions and experiences to help shape the work that you do into precious masterpieces. And to ponder this question: What would you do, if you knew you could not fail?

Rachel Foszcz

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Dear English faculty,

Thanks so much for the gift from the summer reading list! I appreciate the wonderful support that all of you have given me over the last four years at Millikin. You are a great group of people with a tremendous dedication to students! Thanks for all your kindness.

In August I will be moving to southern Illinois to teach sophomore English at Central High School in Breese, Illnois.

Katie Maske

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Alan Hott
Peoria, IL

communication major
&
writing minor

I am from Peoria, IL and declared a minor in English Writing during my junior year at Millikin. It was almost by accident that it happened as I enrolled in a creative writing course to satisfy the English requirement for my Communication major. I enjoyed the course so much that I wanted to take more and eventually just picked up the minor. However, it was while working as a media relations intern for the Milwaukee Brewers during the summer of 2003 that I realized my passion for sports writing. I decided to concentrate my senior year on journalism in order to gain as much experience as I could.

While at Millikin my writing involvement was consumed mostly by The Decaturian , as I held the position of sports editor during my senior year. I also gained experience from the Herald & Review doing sports correspondent writing and thoroughly enjoyed taking Newswriting I and Feature Writing. In February 2004 my sports writing hobby took a positive turn as I earned second place in the Sports Features category at the Illinois Collegiate Press Association Awards (ICPA) and I decided that maybe this was something I could pursue as a career.

Besides selling my soul to The Decaturian, I was a four year member of Millikin's Jazz Lab Band 1 and spent some time in the Concert Band and the Wind Ensemble. I am also a member of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity.

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