Real Students of Macomb

By his account, Ryan Brown, 28 and from Detroit, had a completely normal upbringing. He grew up in a two-parent household and was the middle of three children. However, his life was turned upside down at 13, after his father passed away.

“It was just hard after that,” shares Brown, who began to ask himself, “Am I really going to graduate?”

Brown struggled throughout high school and bounced between three schools. He attended Detroit East Catholic High School in ninth grade. Following its closure, he transferred to the Detroit School of Arts in 10^th grade. “That didn’t work out so well, so I ended up leaving there and going to Consortium College Prep High School,” says Brown.

After graduating, Brown questioned whether he really wanted to continue his education. He ultimately decided upon Macomb and has been studying general business. “The environment was more controlled and accepting,” relates Brown. “It was easy to make my decision to come here.”

While Brown is set to earn his degree in December, he’s not finished with his studies. Aspiring to become a personal trainer, Brown intends to return to Macomb and earn the Certified Personal Fitness Trainer certification. But, that’s just one of several vocational aspirations.

“I think I’ve always wanted to do a lot of things,” says Brown. “I never found myself being consolidated into one thing.”

Inspired by the Food Channel, Brown also hopes to open a food truck. Diverging from the path set by others, he shuns the notion of serving common dishes such as tacos or macaroni and cheese. Instead, his plan is to offer breakfast. “Breakfast is one of those things that most people don’t get,” says Brown.

Another goal for Brown is to take his passion for writing, currently an outlet, and turn it into a career. His primary interest is in poetry, but he’s also penned a few unpublished self-help books.

“I went through a portion of life where I suffered from depression and anxiety, and it really got to me,” relates Brown. “I want to be on the other side of the spectrum, because I know what it feels like.”

Through his classes at Macomb, Brown feels he has the tools he needs to become a successful author. “It has expanded my abilities to think outside the box,” says Brown, “with the chance to continuously reach out more with my own works.” Beyond that, his classes challenged him to come out of his shell.

“My experiences (at Macomb) were good, because I forced myself to be open and more communicative with other students and teachers,” says Brown. Enrolling in the business program “was one of the easiest things I could have done.”

During the two weeks she volunteered at three orphanages in Africa, Lauren Vukovich visited with zebras and giraffes in a protected sanctuary, learned how to say hello (hujambo) in Swahili and couldn’t wait for the sunrise each morning.

“When the sun hits your face, it’s like the Kenyan people are warming you with their loving nature,” says Vukovich. “I had been searching for an experience like this since I was 16.”

The opportunity to visit Kenya was presented to Vukovich by Rochelle Zaranek, Macomb social work professor, whose class also led the undecided student to consider a certain career path.

“I’ve been trying to listen to my passion. I knew I really wanted to make social change,” says Vukovich, 20. “But nothing really called to me before my first social work class at Macomb.”

Although this was the off year for Macomb’s study abroad trip to Kenya, Zaranek arranged for Vukovich to meet up with other U.S. students who were volunteering at the orphanages. For her first trip abroad, Vukovich flew 16 hours to Nairobi and then travelled by bus between the three orphanages. In this eastern African nation where the landscape and culture are dramatic, Vukovich experienced multiple climates and terrains, and met people of all ages who were intensely curious about the Americans in their midst.

“When you get there, they are so excited to have you,” says Vukovich. “The children are fascinated and love you. The teenagers want to learn your language.  The 20-year-olds want to know about your government and how you live, and the older people love the American fashions. They are all extremely intelligent and friendly.”

Kenya is marked by economic extremes, with nearly half of its population living below the poverty line. At the orphanages, Vukovich tutored and played with children whose parents had died from disease or violence, or did not have the means to care for and educate them. But despite the difficulties they face, Vukovich found the Kenyan people in and around the orphanages to be some of the happiest she had ever encountered.

“They literally love everything about life and just radiate pure joy,” relates Vukovich, whose   wrist bears a copper bracelet that signifies her “marriage” to the orphanages’ children. “When I was there, I woke up every day feeling so satisfied and fulfilled. If you are looking for a trip that completely fills your heart so much that you never want to leave, then this is it.”

Leslie Borst loves tinkering with code, and has learned a fair bit about it through experimentation. But, for most of Borst’s life, her passion was art. She attended the Art Institute of Phoenix for two-and-a-half years, taking a full class load while also working part time.

“I’ve heard a lot of criticism over the years about art students supposedly having it easy, because they’re just studying art and drawing all day,” says Borst. She reasons that this is a misconception, because a serious art student spends “between 40 and 60 hours per week, just in homework assignments.”

The workload tempered Borst’s excitement for art, but it was ultimately the prohibitive cost of tuition that forced her to change course and return to Michigan. However, one of her required classes at the Art Institute ignited another passion.

“They made us take an HTML class, so we could build our own portfolio site,” explains Borst, who took this skill home and began building upon it. “I would sit on my computer for hours, just playing with the code.”

She revealed this to her mentor, Chris DeMars, senior UI developer for United Shore, who suggested that she turn this hobby into a career. Borst enrolled at Macomb in 2017 and is pursuing an Associate of Applied Science Degree in IT – Website Programming. She expects to graduate following the winter 2019 semester.

“I’ve been loving every second of it,” Borst adds. “It’s way more affordable for someone like me, who’s working and just trying to get an education.”

It was also through the encouragement of her mentor that Borst applied for and was awarded a scholarship to take part in a Grand Circus coding boot camp in Detroit, sponsored by the DEVELOP(her) program. DEVELOP(her) aims to train female developers to enter the technology workforce, a field in which women are largely underrepresented.

Borst attends the boot camp, which runs through December, three nights a week. And that’s on top of her full-time class schedule. Borst is also creating a website for a national car club, and maintains a blog detailing her experiences in development.

“I’m trying to share my story a little bit to encourage people to go to school, get an education, and go after what they really want,” relates Borst. Her goal is to “pass the knowledge on to people who are just starting out and wouldn’t know any of those things that I learned, unless they had a mentor.”

Perhaps it was the influence of his Polish mother, whose native country is known for its tea drinking culture.  Or, maybe, it was because he found coffee somewhat “boring.” But Cody Wallace, a Macomb architectural student, has been drinking tea since childhood and now he is building a subscription tea business that is besting all of his other efforts in online entrepreneurship to date.

“I didn’t have a car and was too young to work, but I had a computer,” says Wallace, who graduated from Chippewa Valley High School in 2017.  “I started out on eBay in middle school, then it was drop shipping, selling pet supplies, furniture from China and women’s clothing.  I even worked at home for Pizza Hut, taking orders from all over the country.”

Wallace launched A Taste of Tea in April with Noah Cannon, his partner and childhood friend. With no marketing other than on Instagram, the duo raised $1,000 with a Kickstarter campaign to introduce their startup to the digital marketplace.  Wallace designed the website, tasteoftea.co, and admits that visitors were few to start.  But benefitting from recent appearances at summer festivals and a write-up in The Macomb Daily, Taste of Tea is finally seeing growth in its customer base. 

“We actually ran out of supplies at the Romeo (Peach) Festival,” admits Wallace.  “It was a mess, but a good mess.”

Taste of Tea blends are made from plants farmed at offsite plantations and packaged by Wallace. He spends a few hours each evening filling orders and appreciates the freedom self-employment has given him to attend classes at Macomb. He intends to transfer to Lawrence Technological University and earn a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

“I took a lot of computer classes in high school, but didn’t like them,” says Wallace, who chose Macomb, initially for its lower tuition rate when compared to a university.  The son of two former Macomb students, he decided to stay because of the quality of its programs. “The teachers have been great and I’m glad I came. Macomb helped me figure out what I wanted to do.”

Hoping to design homes one day, Wallace believes he will still continue toward that goal even if Taste of Tea, which recently attracted a Japanese investor, takes off with pop-up stores and restaurant orders.

“So far,” says Wallace, whose favorite Taste of Tea brew is Orchard Berry, “the future looks bright.”

During four tours of combat duty in Iraq, Bobby Champagne survived two blasts from improvised explosive devices and a fall from a second-floor balcony that would lead to seven knee surgeries. After he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), however, the U.S. Navy Seabee was ready to accept his honorable discharge. Or so he thought.

“For 15 years, I wore the same thing everyday, so just picking out an outfit was a challenge,” shares Champagne of the transition to civilian life. “Most vets don’t know what to expect when they return home. I want to help vets who are lost like I was.”

In therapy for two years, Champagne refused to take any medication to help ease the anxieties caused by PTSD.  Instead, he followed his therapist’s advice and confronted each one head on, including taking a college class to quell his uneasiness about public places.

“I did some research,” says Champagne, “and Macomb had the most veterans’ support.”

He has since become a full-time student, made the dean’s list every semester, switched his interest from social work to organizational psychology and plans to transfer to Wayne State University to earn a master’s degree.  And, he is in the process of adopting a service dog, who will stand guard against the inevitable nightmares that accompany PTSD. The Dutch shepherd, says Champagne, “will sleep by my bedside and be trained to turn on the light.”

In addition to Ramadi and Fallujah, where he led patrols, Champagne’s military career also provided opportunities to travel throughout Europe and Asia.  And for three years, he was stationed in Hawaii.

“I enlisted at 19 to see the world,” acknowledges Champagne, a New Orleans native who met his Michigan-born wife, Nichole, while he was stationed in California, where she was attending college.  “Looking back on it, my years in the service were some of the proudest of my life.  But once my son was born, my perspective changed and I was more grounded.”

Son Aiden is now 12 and daughter Olivia, 7.  Nichole works as a behavioral analyst, and Champagne credits her support and encouragement for helping him find his niche in civilian life. He also gives credit to Macomb’s Office of Veteran and Military Services, where he knows the director on a first-name basis.

“We can register for our classes there,” says Champagne, of the South and Center Campus locations that provide free resources to veterans. “They make things so much easier for us.  And you have the opportunity to meet other veterans.  It was another vet who told me about the service dog program. We already have two dogs, but he will be a nice addition to the family.”

Like many 20-year olds, Sumaiya Ferdawsi is a pro at using social media. Unlike most, however, she is tweeting to friends and family in Bangladesh, while hoping someday to work behind the scenes at one of the digital behemoths.

“We came a year ago,” says Ferdawsi, who spoke little English when she first arrived in the U.S. from the South Asian nation. “I started at Macomb 20 days after moving here. I learned the language by watching movies.”

Ferdawsi, her mom and two siblings moved from Sylhet, an urban area in northern Bangladesh, to Warren, after choosing Southeast Michigan as the U.S. region in which they wanted to relocate.  The reason for that choice was blue and gold.

“We moved here for the University of Michigan (U of M)” says Ferdawsi, who intends to major in computer engineering at U of M after transferring from Macomb, where she is taking math classes.

Ferdawsi dreams of working at Google (whose CEO attended U of M) – or Facebook or Twitter. In Bangladesh, she had passed the entrance exam at Dhaka University, known to many as the Oxford of the East, and was two months into a software engineering program when her family decided to emigrate.

“We moved here for a better life, and I like it a lot. My favorite class is calculus and Professor Musallam is a really great teacher,” says Ferdawsi.  “Macomb’s students are so friendly; they have helped me a lot.”

That’s not to say there isn’t much about her homeland that she misses.  “There is a lot of natural beauty there,” she says, counting the Bay of Bengal, the world’s longest sea beach, and the tea gardens and tropical forests in the Surma Valley, near where she grew up, among her favorites.

Ferdawsi returned to Bangladesh with her immediate family this summer to attend the wedding of her brother, a Dhaka graduate and government secretary. In traditional fashion, the ladies decorated their arms and hands with elaborate henna tattoos and the bride wore red. Her henna tattoo had not yet faded when Ferdawsi brought her dad (newly emigrated) to visit the office of College Advancement and Community Relations at South Campus. She also brought gifts for those who provided mentoring during her work-study assignment last semester, which she will repeat in the fall.

“With work-study, my schedule is arranged around my classes so I can easily maintain my classes and my job. It saves me time and helps me gain career experience,” says Ferdawsi.  “The campus is so big, but everyone at the College is so kind. And now I have a lot of friends here and in Bangladesh, too.”

Jarod Baker is a self-described people person with boundless energy and a talent for singing and making friends.  All of that comes into play in his role as a member of the Macombers, the touring troupe that represents the College in performances and competitions across the state.

“I first heard about Macomb when I was in middle school,” says Baker. “Then I saw posters at Dakota and it was good to know that Macomb was here for me. I can say I haven’t had a bad teacher since I’ve been here. And, it has saved a lot of cash for me and my family.”

Baker enrolled at Macomb as soon as he graduated from Dakota High School in 2016.   He auditioned and earned a place on the Macombers his first year and has successfully re-auditioned twice.  He will be graduating next May and intends to pursue a degree in musical therapy.  Still, he wouldn’t mind extending his performing career for a few years or a lifetime longer.

“I would love to do professional work,” says Baker, who receives a partial scholarship in exchange for the hours he practices and performs as a Macomber. “I love doing something that I enjoy and getting paid for it.”

Baker played the French horn and euphonium (brass-wind instrument) in high school, but didn’t begin singing until his junior year.  At Macomb, he is also a member of Expressions, an a cappella ensemble that took fourth place in the Great Lakes quarterfinals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella last February.  Both the Macombers and Expressions are under the direction of Todd Moses, one of Baker’s teachers at Dakota before he joined the faculty at Macomb.

“It’s comfortable here, and I have been very inspired,” says Baker.  “The Macombers are like a family. I enjoy the music and the people, and I have learned a lot.”

But an even greater joy comes when the houselights go down and Baker reaches out in song to an audience inside a darkened auditorium.  That’s when he connects with his muse and belts out the set playlist, with Flat Foot Floogie among his favorites

“Performing on stage is exhilarating and I love it,” says Baker. “It has taught me to believe in myself.”