Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable: Advice from an Alumnus

By Nicole Vickers '16 and Berkley Holzschuh '14

It wasn’t until Cisco Reyes ’03 stepped out of his comfort zone and did something new that his life fell into place. While he cautioned he is the exception, and most journeys have hurdles, Reyes believes success is a matter of risk taking and hard work combined.

As a student at Pacific University, Reyes said he wasn’t sure precisely he wanted to do with his career or even which career path he wanted to follow until the spring semester of his senior year.

Cisco Reyes '03

Reyes spent his time at Pacific not stepping out of his comfort zone to try to become a physical therapist, which was his first ambition, but rather playing baseball and coaching throughout the summers. Looking back, Reyes said “[he] developed late professionally because of [his] unwillingness to be ‘uncomfortable.’ Students need to learn how to be okay with being vulnerable; they’ll learn more about themselves that way.”

By putting themselves into more "uncomfortable" situations, networking or going to events, according to Reyes, students will be able to not only make connections that will help them later on in life, but they will be able to get their C.N.P. or Certified Nice Person. 

 “People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” said Reyes. The more students are able to network and have a variety of friends, the better their chances are of being able to know the one person who, if they vouched for them, could mean the difference between having their dream job and getting passed over for the person who did make the connections.

Making these connections, networking and putting themselves in uncomfortable positions isn’t something students should try just for the sole purpose of helping their careers, it is also something that can be very beneficial in helping students find out more about themselves. Not only will new experiences and new people help to avoid some of life’s hurdles, they will also help students to develop and grow as individuals.

The more students are able to put themselves in uncomfortable positions, whether that be volunteering, staying away from home for a summer to work closer to your academic career or even just making and maintaining friendships, the more luck they will have.

A favorite quote of Reyes by Thomas Jefferson sums up his theory, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Alumnus explains importance of campus interactions

By Berkley Holzschuh '14

Forrest Barnes '85

Although athletics was the reason Forrest Barnes ’85 came to Pacific, he stayed because of the opportunities and interactions he was able to benefit from.

“Pacific provided the opportunity to meet, experience and interact with many different people. Not just students, but people like Interior Secretary James Watt, Columnist Bill Buckley, my professors and different guests who spoke on campus,” said Barnes. “It helped me to grow from a farm boy to someone who business people would hire and want on their team.”

Now as the division president at Palm Harbor Homes, one of the nation's largest marketers of factory-built homes, Barnes sets an ideal example of where hard work and honesty will get you.

“I was able to move up in the company by recognizing that people, products and processes made a difference,” said Barnes.

Starting in 1995, Forest Barnes went from sales manager to division president at Palm Harbor Homes. He admits that growing the company is the most rewarding part of his job, but doing what you say you are going to do and being a person who follows through is what Forest said is the “key take away” from his career thus far.

Barnes discussed how important it is for undergraduate students to form connections with potential employers.

“Take advantage of the opportunity to interact. You have the opportunity to attend events and gain the personal interaction skills that develop when you are involved,” said Barnes. “Put down the electronics and experience what the university offers, as it goes by fast.”

Notes From Under the Oaks | January 2014

By Martha Calus-McLain '03 | Director of Alumni Relations

A sketch of the earliest building on the Forest Grove
campus

As I look ahead to 2014, only two weeks gone and the rest full of possibility, I have many resolutions. Among them is a hope to acknowledge people who make a difference. This week I am thinking about the great teachers I had throughout my education.

Over the past six months my husband has been reading the Little Housebooks to our daughter, who is completely enthralled with them. I recently overheard them reading a passage describing conditions in the one-room school house where Laura is teaching in negative forty degree weather.

“At half past three they were all so cold that she thought of dismissing school early. The mile that Martha and Charles must walk, worried her. On the other hand, she should not cut short the pupils' opportunity for learning, and this was not a blizzard.”

This passage brought to mind the spirit of the pioneers who founded Pacific in 1849 in the face of immense adversity.

It makes me think of the students who were so deeply committed to their education they found time for it among the competing responsibilities of frontier life.

It reminds me of the courage of teachers, both in 1882 when they commanded one room school houses throughout the west and today when they risk, and sometimes sacrifice, their lives to save the children in their care.

I shared this passage when I welcomed a dozen new students into our special ed program earlier this week. In a few years, these students will be alumni who spend their days dedicated to the success of young people. Based on the reactions of the students it was clear the passion and dedication Laura conveyed in her memoirs is still true of aspiring teachers.

Last night we hosted the Student Teacher Alumni Reception on the Forest Grove campus. During the evening we got to hear teachers speak earnestly and candidly about their experiences. Again, the passion and dedication was evident.

I hope none of our alumni are teaching kids who have to walk a mile in negative forty degrees, but I’m sure these alumni have a few stories of their own to share.

I’d love to hear from alumni who are teachers. What inspires you? Do you have a great story to share about students who walked a metaphorical cold mile for their education?

I’d also love to hear from alumni about the teachers who helped them. Who was your favorite teacher at Pacific, before or after? How did they inspire you? Did you ever walk a cold mile for your education?

Send us your stories and as always don’t hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance.

Best wishes,

Martha Calus-McLain '03
Director of Alumni Relations

Sensible Career vs. Dream Career

Calcaterra '99

By Garrett Calcaterra '99 

When my creative writing instructors at Pacific University explained to me that making a successful career as a writer was extremely difficult, I happily disregarded their warnings. 

I took my minor in creative writing and went off to California to get my MFA in fiction writing where I heard more of the same from my new professors: it takes years, usually decades, of persistence and honing your craft to make it as a writer. No twenty year old wants to hear their dream could be decades away, so again, I happily ignored those warning and went about my business.

My instructors were all right, of course, but if I’d heeded their warnings and taken on a sensible career I don’t know that I would have had the heart to stick with writing for so long. As it was, I kept at it, working whatever jobs necessary to make ends meet and writing, writing, writing. 

There were a lot of small successes along the way—short stories, essays, and articles that got published here and there—but an author judges his or her success with books. The explosion of small independent publishers over the last several years gave me the opportunity to publish two books of novellas, but I was still hunting for that first publication of a full fledged novel.

Fourteen years after graduating from Pacific, it’s finally happened. Dreamwielder isn’t the first novel I’ve written, but it’s the first of mine to be published, and it’s my favorite. 

The soundest advice I received from my writing instructors was to write what you love to read, and so that’s what Dreamwielder is—high fantasy adventure, very much in the vein of Tolkien and Le Guin and contemporary fantasy writers like George R.R. Martin. 

It’s rooted in this fantasy tradition I grew up loving, but not derivative of it. Instead, I made a huge effort to make Dreamwielder very much an American fantasy novel and also challenge the stereotypical gender roles of popular fiction. Certainly, it’s a book I’m very proud of, and I hope it speaks to readers.

In the meantime, it’s more of the same for me. I’m writing like a maniac and have even taken on the role of a writing teacher. When young writers ask me what it takes to make it as a writer, I tell them the same thing my instructors told me: it takes years of hard work and honing your craft, and if you’re crazy enough to stick with it, then you have exactly what it takes to be an author. 

Calcaterra ’99 was an applied science major with a minor in creative writing at Pacific University. He teaches writing at Chapman University and the Orange County School of the Arts. His new novel, Dreamwielder, is available in e-book format at all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes.