Adelphi Gave Me So Much to Be Thankful For These Past Four Years

By: Joseph D’Andrea

Editor’s Note: The Delphian has an annual tradition of publishing first-person essays by senior staff members so they can talk about what their experiences were like leading the school newspaper, as well as their time as Adelphi students. Here the editor-in-chief, features editor and social media  editor all share their thoughts. They will be missed around here!

When I left high school in 2021, I had ambitions but still a fairly vague idea of what I wanted to pursue in the years to come, and especially how it would look. I knew that I wanted my professional life to reflect my interests — history, journalism, film — and have always had a desire to share those topics with others. This is what led me to join the Scholar Teacher Education Program (STEP) at Adelphi, which sets students up to ultimately teach, in my case at the adolescent level. When I enrolled at Adelphi having declared a history major in STEP, I had broadly expectations, but it’s not until now, a few weeks away from graduation, that I realize just how much Adelphi has offered to me.

I have no doubt in my mind that without my professors, I would not have accomplished as much as I did these past four years, so I’ll tell my story through them.

Before I even sat in my first college class in fall 2021, I reached out to my academic advisor, Micah Oelze, to start a conversation about what I would be getting into once I stepped foot on campus in the time to come. Professor Oelze not only enthusiastically responded to me but invited me to the campus Starbucks where we met a few days before classes began. It was at that time that I felt my college — and professional — career began. He was the professor who showed me that even though you may be entering a bigger, more “serious” stage in your life, it does not mean that you have to compromise everything about yourself. You can still be animated and have an inner joy that comes out every time you speak. Something I soon learned from Professor Oelze was that you can be proficient and successful, while still not taking yourself completely seriously. He is a very professional man, and I’d be the first to vouch for that.  But his self-awareness and openness to acknowledge parts of life that may not make sense all the time showed me a side of an adult who I aspired to be like when I started at Adelphi, and still feel the same to this day. He was an immediate breath of fresh air that made me feel comfortable at a time when I felt so much was ahead of me. I’ll miss yelling “Oelze!” across campus every time I spot him.

My initial week at Adelphi was also when I attended the first Delphian meeting of the semester. I’ve been writing for student newspapers since eighth grade — mostly covering Major League Baseball — and I write an unhealthy amount in my free time, so it was a no-brainer to join Adelphi’s paper. This is where I met Professor Liza Burby, someone who would become much more than a faculty advisor to me as the years went on. Having someone with decades-long experience as a journalist and publisher be so personable and welcoming to someone new to the university helped ignite my passion for writing at a more professional level. It’s with this that I decided to add a journalism minor in my sophomore year, shortly after becoming the paper’s opinions editor. Now, I find myself in the role of The Delphian’s editor-in-chief, with three Press Club of Long Island awards under my belt, and I could not be more proud and thankful to have been able to spread stories and interview extremely interesting people along the way.

Having routinely gone through my freshman year, it was in my second semester of my sophomore year that I really learned just how much I could delve into subjects — specifically historical ones — that piqued my interest. I took Professor Cristina Zaccarini’s Sophomore Seminar Research Skills course in which we discussed a good deal of history related to enslaved people in the United States. Using the individuals’ own accounts (which varied in tone), I was able to look at history from a deeply personal perspective. Research may sound boring to most but I happily spend hours on end clicking from hyperlink to hyperlink. I learned a lot about the course’s content, yes, but what I really feel I took away from the class was the initiative to dive in head-first into figuring out who writes history, how it looks from period to period, and what else we can learn from what may already be assumed to be “all figured out.” 

Coming out of high school, I think a lot of us can feel like the history we learned was set in stone, but with my college courses, my view of history was completely flipped on its head — in the best way possible. History isn’t past; it’s living. I’m grateful to have gained this point of view because it’ll greatly benefit me when I’m in front of students of my own. Professor Zaccarini has been the mentor I’ve collaborated the most with, and with her advice, I’ve been able to present my research several times — even doing so at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research — and have recently received word that an essay of mine will be published in a peer-reviewed scholarly film magazine this year. 

I also scored my first internship, through Adelphi’s Jaggar Community Fellows Program, which placed me at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. It is there that I’ve grown so much as both a learner and educator, and next month will mark three years since I began working there. In my senior year, Adelphi gave me the incredible opportunity to have an exhibit in the Swirbul Library, where I displayed items from my collection of American historical memorabilia. It was a genuine dream come true and I can’t thank the university enough for that.

From October 7 to November 9, 2024, my exhibit “American Ideas in Full Color” — which showcased different historical memorabilia, some dating back over a hundred years ago — was on display in the Swirbul Library. Photo by Joseph D’Andrea

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has helped me during my time as an undergraduate — my family, friends, professors, and anyone else who lent me a piece of advice along the way.