Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Katherine Kuzma-Beck

The July 16th sister spotlight focuses on Katherine Kuzma-Beck, a Fall 2006 initiate of the Theta Tau chapter. 

I joined Alpha Chi Omega because I wanted to have female friends. At the time, I just had my high school boyfriend and all of his friends, I sort of failed to make my own way in high school and once I got to Rutgers, I wanted to make my own path and my own friends.

I joined the fall semester of my junior year. It was the second sorority that I had visited during informal recruitment. The first one I had gone to had been loud and clicky and it was obvious from the moment that I had walked in that it was not for me. My roommate got invited to a recruitment event and so I went, totally by myself. I was so incredibly nervous and had literally walked into a house full of strangers alone. However, it didn’t feel like I was out of place or wrong to have gone, instead I started talking to girls and soon I found a few girls from my hometown and even some girls who I didn’t know, but had so much in common with. I got my bid that night and accepted it the next morning.

My time at Alpha Chi Omega was crazy and sometimes indescribable. I took four littles, I held an executive position on Panhellenic and a non-executive position in the chapter. I also doubled majored and worked—I learned what burn out was and I learned what it meant to keep a schedule.

I also learned grief. I only had a big sister for about a semester and a half. My big is Meghan McGrady and almost immediately after bonding with her and becoming her friend, she began her battle with Ovarian Cancer. Watching her be so sick, fight so hard and then pass away at such a young age completely derailed me in a lot of ways because seriously, why does someone so wonderful have to die so young?
I just didn’t realize then that it was by knowing her and watching her go through so much that she left her mark on my life. Meghan made me want to give to people like she gave to us. Meghan taught me that that was important and that it was okay to be the biggest nerd, even if that wasn’t “cool.”

Today, I am not the swanky art gallery owner I thought I was going to be. I graduated Rutgers with a dual degree in art history and journalism and went on for my teaching certification in English literature and am currently in my second to last semester of my masters program where by December, I will have my MA in English literature and creative writing. I currently teach 8th grade language arts at Grace A. Dunn Middle School in Trenton, NJ where I am more to my students then just their teacher. Students who struggle with poverty and violence need someone to listen to them and love them as well as teach them, I try very hard to be all three for them—a lesson that Meghan taught me.

I’ve also written a book, Miss Burton’s Class The First Year: Tales of a 5th Grade Teacher Turned Zombie Survivalist and have also been published in USA Today, The Thought Catalog and in art exhibitions like “Earth from Above” and “Honoré Daumier & La Maison Aubert: Political and Social Satire in Paris.”
A lot of this I do owe to my time at Rutgers and with Alpha Chi Omega, because in the end, what I walked away with was believing that it was not only okay, but good to be who you are. Meghan really enforced that with me, I have yet to meet someone who is as young as she was and as comfortable with herself as she was.

So, had I not came to that tiny house at 4 Union Street that fall night, I would not have met Meghan and I probably would not have met my other sisters who I have kept in contact with since graduating in 2008. To some extent, I even question if I would be a teacher at this point in my life as well. Alpha Chi Omega helped set me on the path to myself and for that, I am very grateful.

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