Profile Who?

Aimee Dodge


February 12, 2010



Student Profile: The Hard Working Student

Dylan Cayer meets me in the Memorial Union after a day of lectures and photocopying. From his expression it looks like it’s been a long day. As we search for a quieter place to settle down for the interview, he strikes up idle conversation. He’s a bit nervous, not having done many interviews, but he quickly gets down to business.

I first noticed Dylan in my Shakespeare class. He has an air about him that makes you curious to know him and once you talk to him you start to understand why. As a senior in the English department, he is taking on the challenge of a more than full course load, trying to complete his capstone requirements and putting in hours at the International Department. He admits that his schedule is stressful, “[it] takes a big toll on you.” His days are long, some starting mid-morning and ending somewhere around ten o’clock in the evening and leave very little time for rest or relaxation. Dylan isn’t unaccustomed to hard work; he grew up in a mill town and came to realize early in life that you have to work for what you want.

Not everything is stressful for Dylan though, in his junior year he applied for a year abroad and found himself in England and fulfilling his life-long desire to go abroad. There he took courses and immersed himself in the English culture. He talked to me about the differences between the culture he was used to and the English culture that he was exposed to and found that the social environment was more interesting and agreeable than the one he left behind. "In England, you sit down at a pub with four or five of your friends and you all get drinks,” Dylan told me as he talked about the differences between the social cultures, “but it’s all about the social aspect.” He also talked about how polite and interested the locals are in visitors, “they’ll start asking you legitimate, intelligent questions.” He also talk about the chance to experience football or soccer the way that is was meant to be experienced, "being with seventy thousand people chanting."

At the end of his current term Dylan will be graduating and though his plans after undergraduate school have changed recently, he would really like to return to England and study for his master’s degree, “I really enjoyed education there.”