Here is the second part of our spotlight on Will McChesney, as a Q&A I conducted with him over email.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced in the classroom?
Will McChesney: Due to dropping out of high school, there were tremendous gaps in my formal education. For instance, I could write reasonably well, but I couldn’t properly identify a pronoun if my life depended upon it. When I first started in my math classes, I couldn’t remember how to do long division. I also had not been in a classroom in well over a decade (I started at Sinclair at 28 years-old).
But I voiced my concerns to my instructors and they helped me. There wasn’t a single professor who wasn’t willing to take extra time to catch me up to speed. Granted, it meant staying after class and meeting in office hours, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
…And sorry, Math Department: I’m still reaching for my iPhone calculator for just about anything.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Sinclair?
Will McChesney: At the risk of redundancy, I would have to say my favorite thing about Sinclair would be our faculty. They’re all true miracle workers and I cannot properly underscore how critical they were to my success.
An impossibly close second favorite would have to be the chicken-bacon-ranch pizza that is periodically available in the Tartan Marketplace. A freshly-baked slice of that with a shake or two of crushed red pepper is a home run in my book. Treat yo self.
Q. What advice do you have for Sinclair students?
Will McChesney: If I could hand out any advice, it would be to never be okay with average. Don’t settle. Work hard. I mean really hard. Go the extra mile. If your absolute best effort results in you getting a “C,” that’s fine. But truly give it your best. I see so many students that are fully capable of attaining 4.0 cumulative GPA, yet they adhere to the adage of “C’s get degrees.”
While that might be true, wouldn’t you rather look back on your college experience and know you gave it everything you had? What if you want to go to graduate or professional school? Grades can open doors or close them. While that “C” may indeed get you a degree, conversely it may limit you from other opportunities. Plainly, just don’t settle.
Moreover, email your instructors, interact with them. Get to know them. Meet with them in office hours, stay after a few minutes in class. You’ll be surprised how much that can pay off. Not only in terms of understanding the subtle nuances of class material (the devil is in the details in college), but that instructor may be willing to lend a helping hand when you need it in the future. I’ve certainly reached for plenty of those hands, myself.
Get involved. Find a club, an organization or a cause on campus and commit yourself to it. Especially if it involves helping others. It almost sounds counterintuitive to think that by expending time and energy on someone else that you end up enriching yourself, but it’s true.
Q: And what would you say to people who might be involved in a bad situation similar to yours?
Will McChesney: For people who come from bad situations (or are currently involved in one), I’d encourage you to look at what your part is. There are things in life that none of us can control, like the families or the financial situations we’re born into. Nor can we change our past mistakes. Learn from them. Repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. Look at what YOU can control and change it. Don’t let your past dictate your future. Don’t become a victim of yourself or your situation.
I spent years making excuses for myself or telling myself that I can’t do something. Sinclair can be your springboard to literally anywhere you want to go. I went from being a high school dropout with almost zero hope for the future to getting letters about transfer admissions from Harvard, NYU and Columbia in less than two years. Sinclair helped me to do that. I’m not special. I just work hard. If I can do it, you absolutely can.
Final piece of advice: the top-level of the parking garage is terribly underutilized and is actually faster than parking elsewhere. The view is great, too.
Q. How has Ohio State been treating you so far? Do you like it?
Will McChesney: Ohio State has been pretty great so far. I was honestly surprised by how smart and motivated seemingly all of the students are here. Furthermore, I am a political science major and Ohio State’s Political Science Department is ranked in the top-15 in the United States.
As a result, I’m taught by brilliant, world-renowned professors who constantly inspire and challenge me. Nearly every day that I walk into lecture, the way in which I view how the world works is dramatically altered and my mind is consistently blown wide-open. It can certainly be a bit intimidating knowing your professors have Department of Defense or State Department security clearances, have worked extensively on domestic and foreign policy and are often fixtures on national news networks.
It is also demanding: I’ve read almost 1000 pages of political science journals and have written five papers in my first three weeks. But Sinclair prepared me for it. Ohio State is a tremendous school and only an hour or so from Dayton. Columbus is a great city replete with opportunity. We have the largest alumni network in the country and Buckeyes are always looking out for each other. You won’t have a problem finding a job.
Q. What are your plans for the future and how are they going?
Will McChesney: I plan to graduate from OSU and go to the best law school that will have me. After that, I’d like to clerk for a federal appellate judge and ultimately work in government or the nonprofit world. So far, so good. I’m on track academically and I’m presently working on becoming involved in more extracurricular opportunities.
I plan on taking the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) at some point in the next six months. I’ll begin applying for law school in Fall 2018 and graduate in Spring 2019; beginning law school the following Autumn.
In the short-term, I’m planning to go get some pizza when I’m done with this interview. I’d say that’s going extremely well. I’ll report back.
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor