Attention, residents of Buford: If your usually relaxed Monday-afternoon Starbucks break was interrupted this past spring by a piercing scream, Becca Moss would like to ask your forgiveness.
“They were supposed to let us know that Friday, so I was not expecting the call four days early,” says Moss, who had interviewed for the Presidential Scholarship at Georgia State the week before. “I was at Starbucks studying, and I think I scared the people around me a little — I did the girly jump-and-squeal, and I don’t normally do that. I don’t think I’ve ever done the bounce-up-and-scream thing before.”
Moss’ excitement hasn’t waned much in the months that have passed since then. Now, as she prepares to begin college in downtown Atlanta, she’s eagerly anticipating something she wasn’t really expecting to find on a campus of 35,000 students in the first place: a sense of community.
Small Classes, Vast Horizons
Moss admits that Georgia State was sort of on the edges of her radar as she began her college search. In January, though, she got a call from the Honors College asking her to apply, “and it kind of took off from there.”
She also got a ringing endorsement from her uncle, a Georgia State alum. “I heard him talk about the Executive MBA program and things like that, and how close the community was. I wanted the benefits of a big school but the community of a small school, and the Honors College kind of fit that niche for me.
“It’s such a small, innovative group, and that’s something that’s really important to me, that sense of community,” says Moss, who found herself gravitating toward Georgia State’s Accelerated Bachelor’s/J.D. Program. “I feel like that’s integral to my success in college. The Presidential Scholarship, it resolved all the worries about not having any kind of support that I need. It’s a built-in fun group of like-minded people who are diverse enough to always be interesting. And I really like the resources available at the school, like the LARC [Language Acquisition and Resource Center]. Anything I might have an issue about, Georgia State has a solution.”
A Little Bit of Everything
Moss will be spending plenty of time at the LARC as she pursues a double major in international economics and modern languages. “I’m very interested in law, particularly international business law, and I know that in order to be successful in that field it’s very useful to have a second language,” she explains. “I took French for three years in high school, and I don’t want to lose that, so I decided to take the jump and commit to it through college.
“As far as the economics side of it, I’m just interested in the way economics works, and I wanted to pick a major that I would be happy with even if I didn’t end up going to law school. There are plenty of people who do political science or pre-law, but I didn’t want to commit myself to something I might not be interested in three or four years down the road.”
For a good chunk of her summer, Moss has been right up the street from the Georgia State campus — doing a summer internship at the law firm of Hall Booth Smith, located in the 191 Peachtree building. But her time isn’t spent entirely working and studying. Moss says she’s able to fit in plenty of time practicing her violin or playing Xbox, and she’s also a regular volunteer in the nursery at her church.
She’s excited for all the opportunities she’ll have at Georgia State to continue that kind of service. “I’m looking at some of the Christian-based organizations — I am really interested in service organizations, study-abroad opportunities and things like that. I’m really excited for the chance to go overseas and explore other cultures.”
But Moss says she’s also looking forward to being on a campus that will bring so many other cultures practically to her doorstep.
“One other thing I’m really excited about is just the diversity of the student body,” she says. “Obviously organizations and clubs and stuff like that are great, but every university has that. But Georgia State has so much more diversity than most of them. I’m most excited to get to know people I wouldn’t get to know otherwise. It’s like every part of the world is represented at Georgia State.”