A few episodes ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Paul Schaefer, a professor of religion at Grove City College.
Something I loved about that interview was the way he talked about his students. It was clear he adores them. He talked about their joy and their eagerness to learn. He talked about the passion he has for teaching them. All of it highlighted to me how wonderful of a professor he is.
It had another effect too, though. It caused me to want to hear the student side of the story — what do his students have to say about him?
In this episode of Reel Life, I sat down with one of them to answer that question.
In this episode of Reel Life, I got to meet and speak with a professor widely known and beloved here at Grove City College — Dr. Paul Schaefer.
Dr. Shaefer is a religion professor. He teaches everything from required humanities classes like Christianity and Civilization to upper level courses like Systematic Theology. Schaefer is known for being witty, energetic, knowledgeable, and most of all passionate about the subjects he teaches.
Today, I asked him four questions:
What do you like most about students here at Grove City College?
What is the most challenging part of your job?
What inspires you to do what you do?
What is your favorite part of your job?
Dr. Schaefer is truly a wonderful professor who cares about the students here and about his work. This episode of Reel Life shows you a bit of that. Enjoy!
Check out an interview I did with one of his students here.
Andrew DiDonato, a Grove City graduate in 2010, is head coach of the football team here at the college. He also teaches exercise science and physical education classes. In this episode of Reel Life, he sat down with me to answer some big questions.
What inspired you to teach and coach in exercise science?
What is the biggest piece of advice you’d give to college-aged students?
How do you want Grove City College athletes to think about sports?
What is your favorite part of your job?
Coach DiDonato is passionate, wise, and kind. I was so happy to get to do a video interview with him, because those traits show up on camera in a way I would not have been able to capture on paper.
I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed filming!
When I was looking at colleges, I expected to be either a business major or a computer science major. Now, I am an entrepreneurship major with a computer science minor – a perfect fit for me. But one thing plagued me about both options: I love music, and neither business nor computer science have much to say about music technique or theory.
In two ways, Grove City College made it possible for me to work with music in my daily life without needing to major or minor in any musical field.
First, it requires all students to take a certain number of humanities classes, and in multiple of mine, I have gotten to work with and listen to music.
Second – and the topic I want to talk about in today’s video – Grove City provides a whole host of music resources to all students in its building called PEW (J. Howard Pew Fine Arts Center).
In this episode of Reel Life, I vlog about a few stand-out resources PEW has to offer for non-music majors.
Mark is an Entrepreneurship major at Grove City College and the founder of Té Amo Organic Tea. This socially conscious venture donates a percentage of its proceeds to plant trees in Haiti. For every tea bottle sold, Té Amo promises to plant one tree.
On this episode of Reel Life at Grove City College, I sat down with Mark to ask him about his business, the professors who inspired him, and the classes that helped him along his journey. Mark’s college experience is an adventure filled with risk and reward. By listening to his story, I hope you get the sense that college students can take many paths toward success, even toward entrepeneurial success, while still attending classes in a four year program.
At Grove City College, Jonathan Moore is known far and wide as friendly, active, and focused. He brightens every room he enters with a smile and laughter. As an Education major focused in Special Education, a Resident Assistant in a freshman hall, and an involved member of campus activities, he has a lot on his plate. Jonathan is a fantastic example of a college student with varied, balanced interests.
In this episode of Reel Life at Grove City College, I ask Jonathan about his experience. Hear about his favorite characteristic of Grove City students, his Friday night social activities, his one-word descriptor of his time here, and more in the video.
Grove City College excels in sportsmanship. Even though I do not play sports myself, when I was a high-schooler looking at different colleges, the sportsmanship I saw and heard about at Grove City amazed me. I knew I wanted to spend my college years at a place with respect, faith-mindedness, determination, and talent. To my delight, when I went to my first Grove City College sports game, I saw all of those qualities shine out in the players on the field. It was wonderful to know that the College’s values came out even in a sports game. Looking back on it now though, it makes a lot of sense. How people behave on the field is a huge indicator of how they behave off of it.
I wanted to show you the wonder of a Grove City College sports match in a real, tangible way. So, when I was at an Ultimate Frisbee game the other night, I started filming. My friend on the team was nice enough to let me stand right next to the front lines the entire game so I could get some good shots. Like always, it was a wonderful experience. As I was watching, I considered, “What is it that I really love about being at a GCC sporting event?” I narrowed the phenomenon down to my top five favorite things I see at matches.
Talent
Excitement
(Awesome) People
Sportsmanship (or, Respect)
Faith-mindedness
So, in this video, I have focused on showing you those five things.
I hope you enjoy this episode of Reel Life. Most of all though, I hope from watching it, you get a better idea of how uniquely special sports at Grove City College are.
Ben is a junior computer science major who is involved in a ton on campus. He is the head of the robotics club, the director of media for and a dedicated player on Grove City College’s Ultimate Frisbee team, and a member of the Alpha Sigma housing group. He is also a devoted student. Ben is a classic “Grove-er achiever,” as we say here at Grove City College.
I wanted to get this interview of Ben out to you, because I think Ben is a great example of how to strike a balance between extracurricular and academic life. He also has a unique attentiveness to and memory of funny class stories. Besides that though, Ben is a great guy and friend to many. He is fully integrated here at Grove City College, to say the least. Before he got here though, he had to make the choice between The Grove and Penn State. I ask him a bit about that decision in this video, so you can understand the reasoning that ultimately led him to decide on Grove City College.
If you are on the fence in your college search, I hope this video will give you some added insight into what campus life can be like here. I also want it to show you a look into the type of student you could be here if you want to. Ben is taking full advantage of his college years, and it is certainly worth listening to his perspective. Enjoy, and if you are interested, feel free to check out other episodes of Reel Life for videos similar to this.
For this episode of Reel Life, I wanted to finish off the conversation I started about my favorite Grove City College study spots. As I said in Part 1 of this series, beautiful study spaces have always been important to me. When I was a high school junior and senior looking for colleges I could potentially call home, I wondered about their capacities to have pleasant, quiet spaces to study in. It was hard to get a firm read on this aspect of a campus, though. Most college tours or overnights happened too quickly to allow for detailed conversations on ‘hidden gem study spots’ or ‘best places to study’—at least not in as much depth as I would have liked.
If you are interested in Grove City College, you probably care a lot about academics. You are probably dedicated to your classes and to the studying they require. You might, like me, feel strongly that having a good place to study matters. All of that is part of the reason I wanted to get this topic—”Best Campus Study Spots”—on video for you. But more than that, I wanted to make it a two-part series for a few reasons. Firstly, we all study differently. Some people like to have friends and people around them while they study, whereas some like any quiet, accessible room, whereas others need complete silence and isolation. I covered six study spots in the last video, and I cover six more in this one, because I wanted to give as full a look as possible at the variety of spaces Grove City has to offer. I hope watching gives you a better idea of whether Grove City College can meet your specific needs when it comes to study spots.
To me, as a high school student searching for the college I would end up at, knowing that the place I chose would have top-notch study spaces was incredibly important. I love having serene, beautiful places to study. Finding out that Grove City College excelled in that area made a big difference to me when I visited for the first time. I live far away though—all the way over in the greater New York City area. I did not get a chance to visit Grove City until April before my first semester freshman year. Even though this trip was awesome enough to make me sure I wanted to attend, it was unfortunately not long enough to answer some more detailed questions I had about the campus—”What kind of study spots are available?” for example.
That is the question I want to address for you here in this video. I have gathered over a dozen study spots from around campus that I love. In this video, I talk about the first eight. I have a second part on the way where I will talk about the remaining spots. From HAL to Pew to the SAC, Grove City College’s campus proves beautiful and functional, for all my viewing and studying needs. Let’s go through them one by one together. I hope these videos will give you a better idea of the awesome resources Grove City College has for studying.
