My name is Sydnie, and I’m an Allen-oholic (Hello Sydnie).

My name is Sydnie, and I’m an Allen-oholic (Hello Sydnie). I don’t think its weird that I look to Woody Allen to inspire the answers to life’s little conundrums. In fact, I’m a fan of deadpan humor and heavy doses of cynicism and sarcasm. I really think if some company came out with a magic eight ball or some other kind of fortune telling/advice giving object that themed itself around Woody Allen, it would be a hit. Ask Woody Allen. I really just appreciate the honesty behind a man who isn’t afraid to sound ridiculous.
This isn’t to say that I would model my life after his, or that I even agree with everything the man does or talks about…He isn’t my role model. But I think it is safe to say that I have a profound amount of respect for someone who is not afraid to test their own boundaries, and discover something about themselves in the process. For a while I thought that I needed to “play it safe” and put my immediate happiness on the backburner for a chance to *maybe* be happy in the long run. It was Woody Allen who said “You can live to be 100…if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be 100.”. If that’s the case, I’d prefer not to waste away my youth “playing it safe”. I want to be jumping out of airplanes when I’m 75; I’m not about to give up my plan to squeeze every drop of adventure out of my life. I enjoy being spunky, thank you very much. This is why I choose to be a Prescott College student.

If I had gone the UC-way, like my mother and I had planned since the sandbox, I probably wouldn’t have the same rights as I do at Prescott College. Here, I am Sydnie Bonin, free-thinker—there, I would have been Student X000T935NTNS049975195 (or whatever). My rights at PC extend past those issued to me by government mandate. I have the opportunity to challenge the curriculum, exercise my opinions, and create a competence based on whatever I choose. Here, I am not a number and I don’t have to “play it safe”. You don’t tailor yourself to Prescott College—it tailors itself to you.
Whether my classes are in the field, or inside a classroom, I am given the chance to contribute and participate fully in the learning process, weaving in hands-on experience and self-direction into every aspect of the course. There is room at Prescott College to spread your wings. Everyday, I am challenged to create new ideas and run with them. I enjoy “geeking out”—both in-class and out-of-class assignments at PC are actually fun….homework doesn’t seem like work-- studying is learning. My family laughs at me when I talk about Prescott College. “To think…If you hadn’t gone to that career fair! You’d be sitting in a giant lecture hall somewhere…probably taking a nap!”
It is my second year in Prescott…and I am still loving every minute of it. Sure, my competence changes with every new class I take, but I like it that way. I still have time to figure out what I want to do. For now, I’m treating every single class like its own adventure. And if I end up living to be 100, I will still be the same Sydnie—the only difference? I will have 100 years of experiences and adventures under my belt...and I’ll still be packing up for the next big one.