Dana Walden

Whitman College students tell their stories—about their unique experiences in choosing Whitman and being part of the Whitman community and what they love most. This is Dana’s story.

Dana Walden is from Hixson, Tennessee, studying Rhetoric, Writing, and Public Discourse. Dana had no intention of studying at a college in Tennessee so they begged their parents to get the book "381 Best Colleges in America." Whitman stuck out the most because of the rigorous academic system, kind professors, and the compassionate student population.

The “Our Whitman, My Story” podcast is a collaboration between the Whitman College Office of Communication and author and podcaster John Moe ’90. To meet more of our talented students follow Whitman on social media.

Transcript

Everyone at Whitman has a story to tell. How they got here, and what happened once they did. And every story is different. This is Our Whitman, my story.

Hi, my name is Dana Walden. I'm a rhetoric writing and public discourse major. I'm from Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm a senior at Whitman College. I knew I didn't want to go to school in the region that I was from. So I begged my parents to get me this huge book called The 381 Best Colleges in America. It's a Princeton Review book and I read cover to cover all 300, 400 pages or something of it. And somewhere along the line, Whitman got earmarked as a college that I was potentially interested in.

Initially, when I was applying to colleges, I didn't think that I needed a stress-free or a less stressful college experience. So I applied mostly to similar colleges to Whitman with the exception that they were known for having a very intense student body. They were known for lots of competition, for lots of drama, lots of issues with the student body, between students and lots of clicks and things like that. Right before all the deadlines had passed for admissions, I got this panic and I was really nervous that I was wondering what if I made a mistake? What if all of these colleges that I applied to that weren't Whitman, what if I hate it there? And I can't stand the people and I get stressed out, and I ruin my academics. I ruin my what I'm going to college to do, because I'm so caught up in just trying to beat everybody else. So, I applied to Whitman kind of on a whim.

I think what initially drew me to Whitman was this idea that everybody is nice. Everybody is generally kind and compassionate. There's not a lot of competition, but at the same time, it's still a rigorous academic experience. You still get good faculty experiences. There's a really strong alumni network and it's a beautiful campus. Or at least that's what I had read. And that's what the pictures showed me. And it stood out to me as a very unique combination of academic excellence and a good student body, like a student body that I want to know, like people went here that I want to know, and that I would like to be friends with. And I think that was a huge plus for me. I wouldn't say it's a slower pace environment, but I needed to be at a college where I could count on the people that I was surrounded with. And I needed to be somewhere where I didn't feel like I had to sacrifice my mental and my physical health. I didn't have to sacrifice my happiness because I had chosen to go to an academically rigorous school.

I live off campus, we originally named our house, the Ant Hill. But then we thought that didn't quite fit the vibe. So we changed it to the McHouse like Mc at the beginning of McDonald's. So we live in the McHouse. We make McBreakfast. We watch McMovies. I'm a Rhetoric Writing and Public Discourse major. It's easier to just say that I'm a rhetoric major. Rhetoric is all about the study of meaning making. I like to say that it's a combination between philosophy, politics and english. It's a very interdisciplinary major. I love it. I came here pretty much planning on majoring in rhetoric. One of my favorite professors and favorite people ever is Lydia McDermott. She is the Director for the Center for Writing and Speaking. She's also a rhetoric professor. She's my adviser, she's my boss. She is my professor and mentor in many ways.

And she is incredibly kind and smart and very generous. She's a very generous and genuine person. And she's one of those people where the longer you talk to her, the more you learn about the nature of the world, the more you learn about yourself. And I really love that about her. Sometimes she brings her pugs to work. She has two pugs. I spent a lot of time with her and she's also been a very helpful resource for planning, for helping me plan what I'm going to do after I graduate college. She's been very instrumental in how I conceive of my life path after college. I eventually, I want to do what she does right now. I want to work in rhetoric research. I want to do rhetorical studies, but I also want to work with writing education. I want to help people learn how to write as best as I can.

And so she's been very influential in my life. I work at the COWS, which is the Center for Writing and Speaking. It's our writing center. I've been a tutor, writing and speaking tutor for three years now. She's the director. Sometimes we'll go on outings, COWS outings as tutors. And one time we went to go get ice cream at Bright's, which is a local ice cream place on main street. And she brought her kids and she wore a cow onesie. I mean, imagine walking down main street in a cow onesie. And now we all have cow ears that we wear whenever we go on outings and we all have cow masks, it's a fun theme. At COWS we help with, there are tutors that help with any stage in the writing process. So you could come in with a complete draft and just need someone to look over it and help you feel confident in your work.

You could come in with absolutely no idea what you're writing. And we can help you brainstorm, we can help you with long form kind of planning and figuring out your writing process. We also do speaking tutoring. So, if you ever get nervous for presentations, we have some tutors who are really good at helping with that. Oh, there's some others stuff. We also help with more than just papers. We have several tutors who are kind of specialized in creative writing work. We can help with applications to grad school, job applications, scholarship applications, pretty much anything that you can put words on. We can kind of help you think through that. We're generalists. Getting help at COWS is free. It's a wonderful resource. And I would suggest anybody who comes to Whitman use it. I mean, I use COWS and I, everything I do is writing-centered. And it's not about skill level.It's about getting better at something that will always be part of your life.

I went to a K to 12 Pi Day at school. I went to school with the same 60 people for 13 years in the same building. I really liked knowing everyone that I was around, but at the same time, I really needed a new experience. I really wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew me and I could become my own person all over again. Because when everybody you're a senior with in high school has known you since you were four, it's a weird experience for sure.

I don't really know how I made friends. I think they just kind of popped up in my life. I was really nervous because I had never been in a situation where I didn't know anybody. And I was surprised that everyone I met, I could talk to them about something. I had something to talk to them about. And I found my close friends really quickly. And they're all still my close friends. I was in a very close section in Jewett. We're still all friends. We still have a group chat. We called ourselves the twesties because we were in two west. And I don't have many friendships that have fallen away over the past four years. I'm still really close with people that I was close with in the first two weeks of coming to college. I'm Dana, and this has been OurWhitman, my story. There are more episodes of Our Whitman, my story, available right now wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.

Music for this episode provided by the band Chastity Belt. The band formed in 2010 when its members were students at Whitman College, and they're still going strong today.