Jason Beland is a graduating senior majoring in History & Philosophy. Originally from Watertown, he came to UMass Boston via UMass Dartmouth because he prefers an urban environment – being close to the city. He had some friends who were going to school here and decided to give it a try. Then he “fell in love with the place.”
He had always been interested in History and chose it as his major. “It’s such a powerful thing. There’s nothing that I could find more interesting than the field of studying humanity.” One class that really stands out is Revolutionaries with Prof. David Hunt. “It was very cool. At different times around the world political powers were broken down. Countries such as France, Russia and South Korea were destroyed. It explained why they collapsed and then how they built something truly different. And how this effects everything – including people – from the ground up.”
He likes the way professors teach history at UMass Boston. “In high school history can be pretty boring, just memorizing dates and facts, but here it’s presented so differently. That’s what I want to do in the future, is teach high school history with the passion that I have. Forget about the dates - learn about the psyche and how people were living their lives. These were real people. They went through plagues and wars, and I learned why and how hard it was, and the reasons it happened. There are lessons in that that can help you in your life.”

Psychology major Tony Masiello was working in the finance department of a large corporation when he decided to pursue a more meaningful and fulfilling career as a child psychologist. He left his job and enrolled at UMass Boston.

"One of the most valuable lessons I learned was the importance of getting experience in undergraduate research, especially since I planned on applying to graduate schools in pursuit of a Ph.D. My first year working in a Psychology lab got me excited at the potential of doing research. Later, I received the honor of working with Dr. Alice Carter developing research projects and seeing them through to the very end. This experience helped me to design a research project that looked at the effects of a mother's prenatal anxiety on the developmental outcomes of children, which I believed would significantly contribute to the field of developmental psychology. To date, we are almost done with the project and will be writing it up to submit to psychology journals for publication.”

Erica Mena '06, was a student in the University Honors Program, was editor of the student literary journal, The Watermark for two years, Student Senate president in 2005, and spent the past summer studying at Oxford University.

As winner of the English department’s Peter Brooks Butler scholarship, she was awarded free summer school tuition and transportation. Erica says of her time there: “Oxford was magical. The history, the knowledge, it just hangs in the air.” Her professors, or tutors as they are called there, “were superb. Brilliant, engaging, challenging and insightful...they were also extremely demanding.”

Erica, who graduated in December 2006, is the Senior Editor of Arrowsmith Press and plans to pursue a graduate degree in Literary Translation.