Transcript

Samantha Ney:

Yes! I was saying I was hoping an animal would come and it did. Yes! Oh my god that that was awesome.
My name is Samantha Ney, I am from Saco, Maine. I am studying Elementary Education with a concentration in Science, and this is my life in the pines.

I am out here with my roommates and my friends that I’ve met up here at UMaine, and it’s just so fun to be able to live and hang out with them every day.

We are out by the cornfields, out on the walking trails or the bike trails behind the Rec Center. I come out here usually every day after school. I just need some time to decompress and be outside after I get home.

I was between UMaine and the University of Montana when I was deciding where I wanted to go to school, and I was like, “Whoa, what am I doing? I’m a homebody and I know I’m a homebody.” So thinking about going far away, I was like, it was a fun idea in my head. I didn’t want to be away from here. I love everything about it. I love my family. I love my friends, and I wanted to be involved in this community that I grew up in and that I love.

When I first came to the University of Maine, I was a Wildlife Ecology major, and while I loved it and while it’s something I’m still super interested in, I just knew down the road it wasn’t for me, and I wasn’t really sure where to go from there, but I decided on Elementary Education.

I had worked with kids a lot, and it was something I figured I would give a shot. I had just finished my freshman year, and I was completely changing to something new after I had finally felt like I got my feet on the ground. Everyone was super helpful. I was told, you know, this is how things are going to look, and so it made for a really smooth transition, and things have gone great from there.

We are here in the kindergarten classroom where I’m doing my student teaching. I have done my whole 15-week placement here in this classroom, and student teaching is an experience like no other. It is tough, but it’s so rewarding, and I feel like this is really giving me the experience that I need to be successful in my own classroom.

I am excited to graduate. I am sad, of course, to close this chapter of my life. UMaine is so fun. There are so many things to do. Going to the Alfond, watching hockey games, being in there in that atmosphere with everyone is something that everyone should experience. It is so fun. It is so cool. It’s one of the things I love most about UMaine is enjoying hockey games in the Alfond.

I am a part of CHAARG, an all-women’s workout group here on campus. I joined CHAARG my sophomore year when I came to UMaine, and Kennedy here was one of the first people that I met when I joined CHAARG. It is so much fun. It is an amazing group of girls who are just out having fun, out bettering themselves.

UMaine is just fun. There’s so much going on no matter where you go. On campus, off campus. Everyone is just happy to be up here. It’s filled with joy.

We are out here living the island life at the University of Maine. One happy island. One happy island.

It’s like its own little bubble, and it’s kind of like everybody is intertwined at some point throughout their years here.

Kennedy, he’s going to ditch my interview and pick up you.