Innovision Fall 2018

20 | INNOVISION MAGAZINE ABROAD When Melissa was a senior in high school, studying overseas interested her. America was the ideal place for her to come because of familiarity due to two uncles who lived in the U.S. and a family vacation to Disney World. Melissa was accepted into global abroad program, which was familiar to students in South Africa. Melissa expressed to the program that she wanted to study in the Northeast region of America and they automatically placed her in Kutztown. “When I got my acceptance letter that was the first time I heard of Kutztown.” Besides trying to transition from the high school life to life as a college student, Melissa had to make other adjustments as well. “The one thing that stood out to me was the grading scale. A 93 percent is an A here, but the University standard in South Africa, a 75 percent is an A.” Before coming to America, Melissa had a dream of becoming a lawyer, but since a degree in law in America wouldn’t transfer to South Africa, Melissa decided to get her bachelor’s in business. A barrier for Melissa was getting used to the U.S currency system. This didn’t hinder her in the classroom because she didn’t mind asking others for help or researching the information. It also didn’t diminish her love of math. At first, Melissa wanted to major in both Finance and Management so that she could experience both the quantitative and qualitative sides of the business world. She discovered that she really enjoyed the quantitative side of things and wanted to expand on it. Melissa decided to drop her management major and aimed to strengthen her quantitative knowledge. She is now minoring in economics, mathematics and actuarial science. What Melissa loves most about Finance is that it has a practical side to it. “When you’re doing math it’s just pure math, whereas finance is more applied math. You can look at the economy or a company and use math to draw conclusions and I enjoy that.” When asked what she liked most about being here at KU, Melissa said, “The people have been really great. When I arrived everyone was super friendly, helpful and super interested in me. Everyone had tons of questions. I would say two words and people would ask, where are you from?” Another thing that Melissa loves about Kutztown is its small town atmosphere. Being from a big city in South Africa, Melissa loves how she can see familiar faces as she travels around campus, which to her, brings her a “home feeling.” During her second semester, Melissa’s father encouraged her to get a job, and being an international student, she was restricted to working on campus. Melissa applied to work as a Desk Receptionist for residence life and has since worked her way up to being an Assistant Resident Director. When asked about her favorite moment here at KU, Melissa said, “This is going to sound real cheesy, but, the snow. Being outside while it’s snowing is probably the most magical experience I’ve ever had.” MELISSA JENKINGS Melissa Jenkings is an international student from South Africa. She is a senior majoring in Finance with minors in Economics, Mathematics and Actuarial Science.