Shooting for the Stars: Tevin McDonald's plans for the future

By Katie Pratt, Engl 336.001

Publishing a novel, working for the government, and writing speeches for the president. These are just some of the ideas that 18 year old Tevin McDonald has for what he wants as potential jobs. “I want to do all the odd jobs within my major,” he said with a bright eyed smile. Funnily enough, none of those ideas were part of his goal when he first came to Frostburg as a pre-vet major a year ago. It wasn’t until he got to the sciences (Chemistry and Biology) that he realized it was “too much”, and he was making his life miserable. So he switched to an English major, with a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Public Relations, figuring “I speak English, so I should be able to do it.”

Now he finds that he loves all his classes, though juggling them with all of his extracurricular activities isn’t always easy. He is currently a member of The Bottom Line (the weekly campus newspaper), Spotlight Online (a weekly update by email of things that are going on around campus), Alpha Phi Omega (a community service oriented fraternity), and a first year R.A in Allen Hall, all while he is also an honors student. Tevin admits it’s a lot, but as he explains, “I look at everything as an investment,” meaning that in the end it will pay him back.

Back home, Tevin’s family is “very supportive,” and even though his parents have separated, he likes spending time with both his parents and his older siblings (a 20 year old brother and a 21 year old sister) and says that both of the households are fun. In fact, the reason he is interested in working for the government because his mom worked for the government, and seemed to like her job, so he is interested as well.

Despite being so driven, Tevin is not so sure about graduate school, and plans to “see what happens,” confident that everything is “going to fall into place.”  Until then, he’ll enjoy the time he has left at school, making friends and doing community service. Currently, he has a plan in the works to help a local animal shelter raise money to care for local strays. He’s very excited about it, and can’t wait until he is able to put his plan into action.