Written by Marie Kane |
Photos by Rachel Ford

Morgan Graduate Rachel Ford also known as “Roach” by her friends, left her legacy at Morgan with the Class of 2017, and now attends Loyola University in New Orleans, which is a small liberal arts school. She loves it there. “There is a lot of diversity and you get to know everyone. All the freshmen live in one building so it was easy to get to know a lot of the people in my class when I first got here. It’s great, just really different. No one knows you so it’s a fresh start.” Rachel picked Loyola because she fell in love with the city and the school when she came for her audition last December.

She is a music therapy major, so she takes tons of classes. This semester, she is taking Music Theory 1, Freshman Voice Lab, two choirs, a freshman seminar, Piano 1, tech for music students, Intro to Music Therapy, and her private voice lesson with a studio master class.

What Rachel misses most about high school is weekends and Wednesday night sleepovers with all of her friends. If she could go back, she would focus on work more, but other than that, Rachel said that she had great friends who made high school great for her. Rachel thought that she had great teachers all throughout high school, but thinks that Mr. Serenbetz and Mr. Bergman were her favorites. “They both have so much passion for what they did, and it made me want to go to class. They also encouraged you to really think about what you were learning. They wanted you to learn not just test well, and it made the class exciting.” She gave a shoutout to her brother, Matthew, who is a current junior student at Morgan. “I miss you!!”

English teacher and program chair Paul Serenbetz had Rachel in his humanities class for her senior year which he taught with English teacher Julie Frydenborg. “We were inaugurating more music into the class, and Rachel’s a singer so she was very helpful in making more abstract things out of what we were talking about and made it more concrete.” He explained how Rachel always had something thoughtful and interesting to say about what they were doing in class. “I think she’s very positive in a sense of meaning upbeat. She was enthusiastic about the work.” Mr. Serenbetz misses Rachel. “She better come visit. I hope she’s living the dream.”

Rachel described adjusting to college: “Work hasn’t been too much to handle. I have made some really great friends, and I love my program.” The day she left for New Orleans, Rachel said that she was a mess. “I was so nervous because I was going far away, and I did not want to leave my friends and family, but now I know I was being ridiculous. Of course, I miss everyone at home, but I have a new home in New Orleans, and I couldn’t be happier.”

Rachel’s favorite part of being in college now is the people she has met there. What she does not like is how many classes she is taking. “I’m ALWAYS in class.” As much as Rachel loved high school, she would 100% pick college over it. “It’s just better. There isn’t another way to put it.”

She did not play any sports during her time at Morgan. Rachel was nominated for most changed, most musical, and class best friends in senior superlatives but did not win any.

Rachel shared a couple of funny moments from college. “One time we were at a park on the Mississippi River where we all hang out Friday nights after classes, and a dog just came up and peed all over my leg.” Another funny moment in college she had was when she and her roommate found a gorilla costume in her roommate’s car. “Now we just use it to scare everyone on our floor.”

She loves living on campus. “It’s like you have your own place but without the real responsibilities.” Rachel also loves that she lives with/a few doors down from all her friends. “Just make sure you stick up on Energen-c because you will get sick.” She likes that her campus is small also for the reason that it takes her five minutes to get from her bed to any of her classes.

Rachel gave Morgan students advice. “Don’t be afraid to go far away. You have lived in Clinton your entire life, and it will always be there to go back to. It’s scary, but it is so worth it.”