Quincy Clifford:

For me, Pura Vida is, it means community and family and seeking a pure life in those relationships. And that’s kind of exactly what I’ve done at the University of Maine.

Hi everybody, my name is Quincy. I’m a current senior at the University of Maine studying Management, Sports Management, and a minor in Spanish. Right now I’m interning with the Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation and this is my Life in the Pines.

I got my internship through the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, and this is kind of my view of the office and the state building that I hang out with. It has been so phenomenal. My supervisor is so much fun. I’ve been sailing, hiking, but also, like, doing some actual meaningful work in marketing and things like that.

I always knew I wanted to study business forever, even though my parents kind of were questioning it a little bit. It was more of a question of where I was going to go, and for a long time I was dead set on going out of state. Like, I committed to a school out of state because I really just thought I needed to experience something different and that I wouldn’t get that being only an hour away from home. Honestly, I think Ellie also maybe felt that way. I was kind of worried I was just going to be like, not that it’s a terrible thing, but like, stuck with the same people I’d known for my whole life.

But, that really wasn’t the case. I think UMaine was a lot more vast than I, like, thought it was to begin with. I’m really glad that things didn’t go my way and that I ended up at UMaine. And the University of Maine has opened so many doors for me.

Growing up, I always wanted to study abroad and it never seemed feasible, but I did end up studying abroad. So, last semester in the spring, I did a quarter in Costa Rica, and it was incredible. But it definitely changed my perspective of myself and what I can handle. I think that’s one of the most important parts about travel is just to be with yourself and learn from the challenges and things like that.

Being part of the Business School is a lot of fun. My community has grown immensely from when I first started to now. I really love, like, I can walk into almost any room here and know somebody.

I ended up taking… Marley No way. I’m in a group project right now and my partners are from all around the world.
When I needed my credit for, like, a cultural diversity class, I took Spanish, like an elementary Spanish class, and I ended up loving it. And so I declared a Spanish minor.

I also joined the women’s basketball team within, like, a week of being here. So I had that sort of consistency also already, like, built into my schedule and was going to practices, was meeting people from all over. That first year, we had seven countries represented on our team. So I was meeting people from everywhere and hearing their stories.

And I have friends that are going to school right now in Colorado and Nebraska, and they’re beautiful… But having the ocean and the crazy State and National Parks and the mountains and things like that is so nice.

I love taking the privilege of telling people that I grew up here now is, like, I feel like it’s a flex. Like, I’m like, “Ah, well, you have to go back home right now, but I get to stay here.” Because that’s a lot of what I’ve learned at UMaine is that life is about what you make it and the changes that come along. And I’ve transitioned from one major to, you know, adding a different class or a different course. I know that in 50 years, I’m going to look back and remember that that mindset shift happened in my time at UMaine.

I met Ellie because I never stopped talking. I met Ellie in a finance class, like, two weeks before we started working with each other because I sat down next to this, like, girl and she seemed so nice, but we weren’t talking. We were strangers.
Like a week later, we walked into the same meeting together and realized we’d both been hired to be ambassadors by the Business School. We were like, “No way.”