Parting Words from Morgan Mooney

If you’ve made a gift to CGS in recent years, you may recognize the name Morgan Mooney. Mooney (CGS’08, Wheelock’10) is the student assistant in CGS’s alumni relations office and writes the thank-you notes that go to CGS donors. As Mooney prepares to graduate this spring, we wish to thank her for her dedicated service. We asked her to reflect on her years studying and working at the College:

After spending four full years within the hallowed halls of the College of General Studies, I am eager to meet the real world, but saddened that I will no longer walk through the lobby on a daily basis. I spent my first two years at Boston University as a CGS student learning social science, natural science, humanities, and rhetoric—and dreading Capstone. The experience alone was life-changing. In those team lectures and JSAs, I met students who became my closest friends and made relationships that managed to survive four dogged years of college and will last years from now—something not all BU students can say, just as some students will never understand the charm of CGS and those who make attending this College an otherworldly experience.

Not only was I in the classroom, but I also was privileged to receive a Work-Study job in CGS Development and Alumni Relations. In that quiet office, I delighted in bonding with other Work-Study students and learning from Kirsten Lundeen [former CGS alumni officer] the art of event planning and from Peri Onipede [director of development and alumni relations] the delicate skills of networking. After my sophomore year, I continued to the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development to earn my degree in English education, but always I returned to CGS.

At the beginning of junior year, I learned that my responsibilities would be growing, and I would be signing my own thank-you letters to be sent to generous individuals who made gifts to the College. Though stressed at first, I got into the groove of things quickly. At the start of my senior year, I learned I would be coordinating the Capstone Awards Ceremony. Somehow I managed, with the guidance of my lovely boss, and figured that if I could survive my own Capstone project, plan the ceremony, and write thank-you letters, then I am definitely prepared to face a classroom filled with teenagers.

The last semester of college is here, and I am student-teaching 35 hours a week but still manage to sneak back to CGS to work a few hours and show my appreciation to my favorite place on campus. Recalling all that I have done here at CGS, I am amazed that it happened to me. I remember meeting three distinguished alumni, seeing two renovation dedications, helping prospective students understand the hidden gem of BU, attending the first JSA lecture on the first day of classes, and watching an assistant dean going down a zip-line in Hancock, New Hampshire. I have witnessed countless outstanding events over my four years here, and they always seem connected to former CGS students, CGS’s building, the faculty, and the alumni office. Graduation day will be bittersweet as I take my first steps toward a career and my first steps away from Boston University’s College of General Studies.

—Morgan Mooney