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A newsletter for the students, faculty and staff of the Collin College. Published monthly. For information or submissions, call 972.599.3142. Cougar News welcomes student and faculty submissions. Next deadline: August 10. All submissions are due by 5 p.m. on the due date. Photos cannot be returned. Text should be emailed to mrobinson@ccccd.edu or sent on disk. Please submit copy that is proofed, edited and saved in Word format. Cougar News staff: Lisa Vasquez, director; Mark Robinson, editor; Marcy Cadena-Smith, contributor; Dana Schmitz, special contributor; Sydney Portilla-Diggs, student correspondent; Stephanie Hall, student correspondent; Elaine Stewart, special contributor; Nick Young, photography and layout
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Mettle of honor: Collin College couple take a lot from life's experiences
By Mark Robinson
Cougar News Editor
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| Stephanie and Joel Hall. | This is a story about two extraordinary lives. Two paths that skewed from the typical route after high school and then careened back into each other, winding up at Collin College.
It is a story about living life “above and beyond” what is comfortable or even safe. It is a story about Collin College students Joel and Stephanie Hall.
Now, Stephanie is no stranger to this publication. For the last two years or so, she’s been the Cougar News’ student correspondent whilst investing herself in a number of campus groups and fully injecting herself in the grand tapestry of higher education of Collin College.
After she graduated with an associate of arts degree this May, it was time to turn the spotlight onto her and her husband. In the spring, the couple celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary. Of course, between then and now, they’ve done a lot of living.
Both enlisted into the U.S. Army, where they met while undergoing Advanced Individual Training, a sort of technical school to learn one’s job skill once you finish basic training. Joel studied broadcast engineering and Stephanie studied to be a public affairs officer/photojournalist.
This is where their living began.
Stephanie was shipped to Afghanistan for 10 months and Joel to Iraq for a year in 2003. Stephanie had stories and photographs published in U.S. Army publications during her stint overseas.
Joel earned the Bronze Star as a troop during the initial surge into Iraq when the war started. He worked as a video teleconferencing specialist and broadcast engineer. When the invasion took place, U.S. troops destroyed all existing communications. So it was up to Joel and his cohorts to basically rebuild them ... from scratch.
Using spare parts and found items, they built a radio station.
Both returned to the United States in 2004 and after serving out the rest of their commitment to the army, they moved to Plano and began looking for a destination to start their lives as civilians.
“I’ve had several jobs since the Army, really good jobs, and the problem is you get stuck,” Joel, 25, said, referring to the ceiling that exists despite his extensive training in the army. “I could work there another five years and at the age of 30 not be able to go any further. I was looking at the long term future and not immediate future.”
After making the rounds of area colleges and universities, the couple decided upon Collin College.
“We came up to Collin College and fell in love with the campus. It had a university feel,” Stephanie, 26, said.
“It was more than just a building like other community colleges we’d visited. They all felt like somebody built a building and decided to have classes in it,” Joel said.
And both have taken full advantage of their time at Collin College. Although he has worked full time, Joel is a member of the honor society Phi Theta Kappa, and Stephanie served as an officer for that group in addition to the English honor society, Sigma Kappa Delta. Although those experiences were very rewarding, for the Halls, it was all about the education. Both took Honors classes and treasured the opportunities afforded to them by the professors at the college.
“I’ve met professors that really have inspired me to go way above and beyond what was required from the class,” Joel said. “They’ve made me sit at home and think about what they’re teaching.”
While Joel plans to transfer to a university next year, Stephanie has a pretty hefty decision to make: Columbia University or Southern Methodist University. No matter where she winds up, she plans to study cultural anthropology and write books. Her plan is simple: interview as many people as possible from a certain culture and write about it. Right now she’s interviewing members of a Navajo reservation in an attempt to find the essence of their culture and way of life.
Joel, on the other hand, has several majors on his mind -- electrical or mechanical engineering, physics, culinary arts ... well, actually, the latter has been nixed despite the fact that he does love to cook. Joel noted that it’s not really the career that matters for the potential for lifelong discovery.
“It’s less about the field and more about the opportunities I’m going to have,” he said.
It is really difficult to fit all the experiences, medals, accomplishments, lofty grade point averages and all the other bullet points that highlight Joel and Stephanie as not only honorable defenders of this country, but also top-notch students and wonderful human beings into a feature story. But all of it makes up who they really are and it would be difficult to compartmentalize all these aspects.
For example, the military training, for sure, would bleed into their civilian education, and all those experiences accrued by the time they were 26 would shape their successes throughout their lives.
“What I gained most in the military that gives me an advantage is the extra discipline. When I go to class and I need to do something, I just do it. In military you’re always taught to go above and beyond, above and beyond,” Stephanie said.
Of course, when you’re facing hostile environments in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, facing down a tight deadline in your chemistry or English class might seem a little easier.
“For me, it’s being able to look at obstacles differently than others,” Joel said. “Looking at something that seems undoable and being in the military and now looking at a project and thinking it’ll never be accomplished and working at it until the goal comes to fruition.
“(The Army) forces you to grow a lot more. I felt that at 19 I had so much responsibility on my shoulders.”
There is also the leadership factor. When they finished out their enlistment in the Army, Stephanie was a sergeant and Joel was a corporal. Exercising those leadership skills in their early 20s translated over to their higher education at Collin College.
“I’m always taking on a leadership role because the Army gave me that training,” Stephanie said.
Like the U.S. Army, Collin College has given the Halls different perspectives on life. No matter how extraordinary their lives have been, there are billions of others stories and experiences that can be learned from. Joel said he has had the opportunity to talk with students from other cultures or countries about the war and other current-day topics. They both admit that their experience at Collin College has been enlightening. Adding that to their experience in the Army, they have lived pretty full lives with many more years to go.
“I’ve been to a lot of different countries and visited a lot of different cultures,” Stephanie said. “It allows you see the world from other people’s perspective other than just your own. It broadens your mind. It’s cool that there are a lot of good people in this world and it gives me hope in what people can accomplish.”
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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