University Bliss and Academic Achievement Equal Life at ESU for This English Major

Posted by: admin on March 25, 2013, No Comments

Disclaimer: East Stroudsburg University disapproves coercing potential students to tour campus. That being said, Danielle Tretola is happy such a measure was taken on her behalf. “I did not want to go to ESU,” says the English major, “simply because my sister went here and I didn’t want to copy her.” Her sister, Elizabeth Tretola Petrangeli ’04, however, extolled the university’s many hallmarks of quality education until, finally, she could extol no more. Tretola laughs at the memory: “One day [she] threw me in the car and drove me to campus.” And before her private tour was complete, Tretola was ready for the admissions office.

“East Stroudsburg was just everything to me from then on,” says Tretola. All her questions were answered and everywhere she went she felt the campus was a happy place to be. Now a junior, she is an English, secondary education major, a choice she made because she loved reading and writing. “But I probably should have gone into college undeclared,” she says, with hindsight. “I really had no idea what I wanted to do.”

Tretola’s student jobs as resident adviser and orientation leader, and just working with the student affairs folks helped clear things up. “People who work at a college seem so happy,” she says. “They love their jobs and love being around students and care about them – even just getting students to know what they want to do with their lives. And there’s something going on every single day, especially on weekends.

“Ultimately, I would like to work in resident life,” she continues, “maybe starting out as a resident director and moving up from there.” Tretola is considering her next steps which may include a master’s program in counseling with a concentration in student affairs and higher education. “A lot of it [would be] talking to students and getting them over the “freshman hump” and through the “senior battle”, she says. “I just think that’s really cool.”

Among other accolades, Tretola holds a 3.9 GPA and membership in Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honors society. “I work very hard at academics,” she says. “I like to show my mom I’m doing the best I can. And now, with my sister moving out, it’s just my mom and me here. We’re very close, and I like to make her happy.” If being the ESU success story she is constitutes happiness, Tretola can rest easy – her mother is indeed happy.