Voiceover, Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the host and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Miami University.

Female:

I am going into my last semester of chemical engineering.

Male:

I'm a senior journalism major.

Female:

And I'm minoring in supply chain and operations management.

Male:

I'm a biochemistry major. Classes are going great. Extracurriculars are going great.

Female:

I'm an RA on campus.

Male:

I'm thriving.

Jason Meggyesy:

Hi, I'm Jason Meggyesy, and this is Major Insight. This is the podcast where we talk college life with amazing students about how to find your place and purpose on campus. This is a very special episode of Major Insight. This episode is actually my last episode as host. It's kind of bittersweet, because we've made all this progress and gotten the podcast on to a new level. The person that I'm talking with today is going to take it even further. But before we get into it, before I start asking her questions, I'm going to let her introduce herself, and I'm going to start off with the question that I ask everybody, who are you?

Meredith Aliff:

My name is Meredith Aliff. I'm a speech pathology major and psychology double major. I am from West Virginia and I came to school not knowing a single soul. I've loved every second of it. I love Miami. I'm so excited to be here.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah, no. We've talked multiple times before this and your story's so cool how you've... Just in two years, you've kind of navigated this college space. I would even say experienced I don't think four years of college, but a major part of college switching your major, doing stuff like that, which we'll get into. But kind of just talk to me about your history with podcasting and what drew you to wanting to be a part of this?

Meredith Aliff:

Sure. I came into college and there was something about me that just didn't want to come in undecided. My senior year of high school, I was the editor-in-chief of my school yearbook and I thought, "Hey, this is pretty fun. Maybe I'll try journalism." I went in with journalism and very quickly added on the psychology double major and started taking journalism and psych classes right off the bat. I loved it. My first semester sophomore year this year I was in a podcast class and we learned about the ins and outs of it, the technical part. We made our own podcast.

We got to see all the different parts of podcasting and what you can do with it. I totally went crazy for it. I was so excited. I immediately started looking all over campus for ways to keep doing it. Even though I did decide to change my major and I wasn't journalism anymore, I still wanted to keep working with podcasting. And that's what brought me here.

Jason Meggyesy:

It's a really fun medium because it's so new and just the limitless possibilities of what you can do with the platform is what really enticed me, and I'm sure that's what drew you. But from that response, I noticed journalism and psychology. What was that marriage in your mind when you first came in?

Meredith Aliff:

My dad came to college as a psychology major, and then went to law school. My original plan was law school. I was thinking psychology right off the bat, just because that is super fascinating to me, and then journalism with that because I thought, "Hey, it's writing it. It can't hurt for law school." Quickly the law school thing didn't work out, and so that's why I ultimately changed journalism, but I loved psychology too much to let it go. I guess my thought with psychology in particular is I don't necessarily know if I've ever thought about a future in psychology, if I'd want to be a therapist or anything like that, but one thing that has developed is I know I want to work with kids.

I mean, it doesn't hurt to have a little psychology knowledge about developing kids and how to go about that and what's going on in their brains at certain ages. I think psychology can be helpful in any profession. I'm super excited that it's manageable at Miami to have psychology and something else and still graduate on time and get all the credits that you need. I love it.

Jason Meggyesy:

I mean, you've only been here two years, but there's a whole story there. Talk to me about what was it about Miami that made it the place for you to come and were there any other options that you explored before finally settling on Oxford?

Meredith Aliff:

Yes. I had multiple other options that I was considering basically up until the very end when I made the final decision. I want to say I applied to 11 colleges. That obviously set me off on a foot where it was going to be a difficult decision. Once acceptances came back and everything like that, I was a senior, it was 2020, and March COVID hit. My plan was I'm going to go back to all these places. I'm going to look at them all again and then make my decision, and that just didn't end up happening. I loved Miami. I've always loved Miami. I came here as a freshman in high school for the first time and my brothers had hockey games here.

I came and I went into the Goggin Ice Arena and I was like, "This is the coolest campus ever. It's beautiful." And then it kind of just stuck around and it ended up becoming a decision between Miami and Elon, down in North Carolina. I knew some people that were going to go to Elon. There was a little bit of a part of me that kind of wanted to come to a college where nobody was going to know who I was. Nobody from high school was coming with me here. I was going to be completely alone, like brand new slate. That's kind of something that I was looking for.

Jason Meggyesy:

And that's not an easy decision at all really. Did you find any conflict with that decision or were you pretty set on, I kind of want to do this on my own?

Meredith Aliff:

It was a really tough decision, because I feel like one thing that doesn't get talked about a lot with seniors picking where they want to go to college is the underlying influence that your parents have. I mean, my parents supported me a million percent no matter what I was going to do. But obviously there's a part of you that's like, "Well, I know that my mom really loves this campus, and I know that my dad really loves this school." There's things like that that are kind of underlined that made the decision maybe a little more difficult. But at the end of the day, I was pretty set on Miami, and then I just kind of needed to say it I think. I think I was thinking it for a while, but I just needed to say it.

Jason Meggyesy:

How far are you actually from Miami?

Meredith Aliff:

I'm not far. I'm four hours. A four hour drive. That's what a lot of people... When I say West Virginia, they're like, "Oh man. You're from the South. You're so far." I'm a bordering state. I'm pretty close.

Jason Meggyesy:

Only four hours away. That's a day trip to get back home. But like I've said many times, before being on campus is different. It doesn't matter if you're 20 miles away or 200 miles, 2,000 miles away, right? It's different. What was that first year for you? And it was in a weird time too when we were coming off COVID. What was that first year for you kind of like?

Meredith Aliff:

Well, the first year was super strange, because like you said, it was a really unconventional year altogether. I didn't have any in person classes my freshman year of college, so that was definitely strange. But getting invested in organizations and meeting people through those things really helped because it kind of forced me to get out of the dorm room. It was so easy at that point. You wake up, turn on your computer, have class, and then you're still in your room all day. It kind of forced me to get out.

I am so lucky, I had such an amazing roommate my freshman year. We're still very close now. We went through rush together for sororities and we obviously did it on Zoom. We were rushing together in the same room, which was super strange.

Jason Meggyesy:

AirPods in and things like that.

Meredith Aliff:

Yeah, the AirPods trying to ignore each other. But I absolutely loved my freshman year. I met some phenomenal people who I'm still very close with, obviously the organizations that I'm still involved in. I wouldn't change it. Definitely made the most of the situation that was presented to me and my friend group. It was awesome.

Jason Meggyesy:

That is awesome because I will say from my personal experience, because I had a year and a half not on Zoom, junior year kind of messed with me a little bit because I had to completely shift the way that I was thinking about things and the way that I was consuming this knowledge. But the advantage that you guys had coming in is that you didn't know anything else.

Meredith Aliff:

That's exactly what I was going to say. You already had this routine. You knew what you were supposed to have. Whereas we came in, I had no idea what to expect. There was nothing to disappoint.

Jason Meggyesy:

I mean, you had to know that that wasn't what college was. Was there a little bit of disappointment when you started?

Meredith Aliff:

Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think honestly, hot take, most people might not think this, I did not hate virtual classes. I kind of liked being a little bit independent, doing it on my own. I did fine with it. I know of some people that really did not. Like I said, I don't speak for everybody when I say that. But I was disappointed, of course, because I wasn't allowed to be in a study room with more than three people. I wasn't allowed to have big study sessions with my friends at Armstrong and wearing a mask everywhere.

You might recognize somebody, but you're not sure because you can just see their eyes. You're like, "Maybe I don't know that person." Just weird things to get used to that obviously was disappointing, but you make the most of it.

Jason Meggyesy:

How did you start off navigating it? I mean, like we mentioned, that was all you knew. In that weird way, how did you make friends, get involved? What steps did you take to work through that your freshman year?

Meredith Aliff:

I don't know. You might not remember this, but when they let us all come back, they did let us come back. I was so grateful because I thought maybe my whole first semester...

Jason Meggyesy:

You weren't here first...

Meredith Aliff:

I was. I was here, but I was nervous that they weren't going to let us. But we had to come a month late. We were supposed to come in August. We came in September. I auditioned for an acapella group on campus while I was still home. That was really helpful.

Jason Meggyesy:

Before you go, how did that work?

Meredith Aliff:

My dad was an acapella singer in college. He was all about it. Growing up, I would always watch his tapes from his group. He went to Washington and Lee in Lexington. I kind of immediately knew. I was a big musical theater kid in high school and I didn't want to study that, but I knew I wanted to incorporate music somehow. As soon as I decided on Miami, I went to the hub and started checking all of the organizations that were available in that department that I could look into, and I saw the acapella groups. I went up to my dad. I was like, "There are so many. There's three acapella groups that I can audition for as a girl. I really want to do this."

I kind of followed the Instagrams, did all that. It was kind of immediately on my radar. Once I picked Miami, I kind of just sought it out. And then we had virtual auditions at home and it ended up working out. I had upper classmen that already knew who I was when I got to campus, which was super nice.

Jason Meggyesy:

You said that there's multiple. What are the differences between these acapella groups, because I honestly thought there was only one? I thought it was just The Misfitz, which is the one that you're involved with.

Meredith Aliff:

Yes. There's two all female groups. The Misfitz is mine, and then there's another one called The Treblemakers. Just all female. And then there's a co-ed group called Just Duet. And then there's two boys groups, Open Fifth and Soul2Soul. We do collaborations and socials and things all the time with the other groups, which is super fun. We all have the same goal obviously. We all make very catchy like pop music. When it comes to that, there's not a huge contrast, but it's mainly just whether you're co-ed, all boy or all girl. It's the main difference between the groups.

Jason Meggyesy:

Got you. Is there any friendly competition between the groups, or is it all love all the time?

Meredith Aliff:

I mean, of course, there's friendly competition. There has to be. It keeps us excited. It keeps us the adrenaline pumping. Our shows are not competitions though. We never have shows that are us competing against each other. Those are always fun because we all get to hear what we've been working on and all come together and listen. It's always friendly and playful and so much fun to be around all of them. There's groups of friends that have become friends for life that are from... Two are from this acapella group and three are from that one and one's from over here. Just the friendships that are made in between groups is super special.

Jason Meggyesy:

I'm messing around. Obviously there's not crazy competition going on.

Meredith Aliff:

No, no, no.

Jason Meggyesy:

It's fun to talk about. Now, tell me about this whole major switch that went down with you. Was it an identity crisis thing, or what prompted it? Where are you now?

Meredith Aliff:

Obviously before I was journalism and psychology. Kind of just did it because I thought maybe I'd like it, which is the joy of college. You can change it.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah, that's not a bad idea to do at all.

Meredith Aliff:

That was really exciting that I was able to do that. But basically how it happened was over the summer before sophomore year, I shadowed at all kinds of different places. I worked at a dentistry, my stepmom's dentistry. That's where I primarily worked, but I was shadowing at all these different courtrooms with plaintiffs and defense and all kinds of stuff, judges. I would shadow judges. All kinds of stuff. Basically I just decided law school was not for me. I was already a little bit discouraged with journalism at this point because a lot of the people that I was in class with, their end goal was to write for a crazy magazine or a newspaper.

And that was never my goal. I think if I would've stuck with journalism, it would've been much more broadcast, like podcasting and broadcast journalism type things. It was a little bit discouraging because I wasn't necessarily on the same track as the people that I was taking classes with, which is totally fine, but I'm glad that I knew that and noticed that.

Jason Meggyesy:

That takes self-awareness too.

Meredith Aliff:

I was just like, you know what? We don't really have the same goals here and that's totally fine. I mean, they're obviously geniuses and phenomenal writers. I was so lucky to be in class with all of them, but it just wasn't for me. At the end of the summer, I finally made the decision. I am going to switch this semester, but you register the semester before. I already had another semester of journalism that I had to finish, which was very lucky because I had the podcast class. If I had been able to change it, I would never have gotten into this. Everything happens for a reason.

Jason Meggyesy:

Most definitely.

Meredith Aliff:

But I decided on speech pathology. I really wish I could tell you why. I'm not totally sure why or how I've finally decided on it. I've always been interested in studying the voice, the disorders of the voice, what makes it work, all that kind of stuff. I found out that there was a major for that. I kind of jumped on it, and then obviously kept psychology. I have absolutely loved it. I'm so, so glad that I changed it to what I did, because now I'm at the point where I am kind of running out of time. I'm really glad that I made the right decision the first try.

Jason Meggyesy:

The thing that I always tell everybody, whether you've been through college or you're just coming in, or adults when I'm talking to them and they're asking me, it's you can come to school and do whatever you want. If you want to be an architecture major, you can be an architecture major. If you want to be an art major, you can be an art major. But you can't be any of those things and just sit in your dorm and just go to class and then come home. If you're really going to do it, you got to put in the work, and you got to put in the time. That's the thing that I think a lot of people got to understand is you can't just come. Some paths are easier than other paths.

Meredith Aliff:

I think that that's something that I've learned in college that I think you have to learn very quickly, which is if you... I think that leading up to college, a lot of things in our lives are kind of just placed in front of us and we're like, "Okay, I'll take that, or no, I'm good." Whereas when you get to college, it's up to you. It's completely up to you. If you want to sit around and do nothing, that's totally fine. But if you want to get involved, you have to do it yourself.

Jason Meggyesy:

That was something that I wouldn't say I struggled with, but I didn't fully grasp when I was a freshman. Because there were things that I saw that were cool and I was like, "Oh I should do that. I should try that out." But I had this weird thing in my mind that was like, "Oh, maybe they'll ask me to do it." And then I quickly realized, okay, no one's going to come and be like, "Oh you. You look like you could do this, so now come over here and do this," right? But it's really up to you. No one's going to come checking for you.

Meredith Aliff:

I mean, it's your first glimpse of adulthood. You're officially making your own decisions. It comes down to things as simple as class. If you don't want to go to class, that is your decision to make. Every single thing in your life is up to you. I mean, it's daunting, but it's also really exciting, but you just have to know what to do with it.

Jason Meggyesy:

Exactly. Exactly. Are there any specific classes that you want to note or specific professors that you want to shout out or anything like that?

Meredith Aliff:

Yeah. I love my anatomy class. I've heard, I heard going into it, I was very intimidated by this class because I heard going into it that it's a weed out class. That you'll take the class, and then basically from there decide, do I want to keep being a speech path major or not? This was super daunting because I was like, I don't really have time to make a decision like that. I need to like it, so hopefully this goes well. Susan Brehm, my professor, is phenomenal. She thinks so... I mean, her students come first 100%. We play with play-dough.

We chew gum in class. It's all for a reason obviously, but she addresses it with so much creativity and kind of uses that more creative side of our brains because we are in science classes all day. Kind of brings out that creative side in all of us. I love her class. I love her. I guess I'll give a shout out to my physics professor as well, because he's so smart. He's so smart. The things that he says and just the knowledge that he has just off the top of his head is insane. His name's Christopher Beer and he is a genius. Shout out to both of them.

Jason Meggyesy:

Cool. More on the podcast tip now, what do you hope to get from this whole experience?

Meredith Aliff:

Well, first of all, I just want to say how excited I am about it. I have been looking forward to an opportunity like this since I became interested in podcasting, which I would even say was before I took the class. I've always loved listening to podcasts. I think they're so much fun. What I hope to get out of this I guess is obviously there's a skill set with interviewing that needs to be built to have a position like this. I'm really excited for that because I think interviewing and active listening and being comfortable with things like that is always going to be important. It's always going to be helpful no matter what you do, because you're going to have interviews. You're going to have...

I mean, even parenting, the active listening, these are all skills that can be taken really no matter what direction you go in. I'm really excited about that. I'm excited to hear stories. I can't wait to hear about the students at Miami and really get to know these phenomenal people at our university that have figured it out and are kind of doing their own path, going in their own way, and are totally succeeding at it. I look forward to finding people like that, bringing them onto the podcast. I'm really excited to be here. I feel like I've joined at a really exciting time with the transition into the new studio. I think that it's going to be really exciting to kind of see what happens while I'm here in this position.

Jason Meggyesy:

We've talked about this many times before, but make it your own. You're not me, and I'm not you. At the end of the day, it's yours now.

Meredith Aliff:

Well, you've done a phenomenal job.

Jason Meggyesy:

I appreciate that.

Meredith Aliff:

Phenomenal job.

Jason Meggyesy:

I appreciate that. I guess the last thing I have for you is do you have any questions for me? I mean, I'm going to flip it on you. Peter hit me with this when I did my interview like you, so I'm going to do it to you too.

Meredith Aliff:

Let's recap your experience. How would you sum it up? What has this podcast been for you? When did you start again?

Jason Meggyesy:

My first episode came out in the fall.

Meredith Aliff:

Got you.

Jason Meggyesy:

I think through this whole process, I've just been able to really identify and find common ground with people. Like people who are I'm on one side of campus and they're on the complete other side and we would've never crossed paths if not for this. You still are able to find that common ground.

Meredith Aliff:

Commonalities.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah, exactly. That's the best thing that I think I've taken away from this whole thing is just being able to, like you said, hear these people's stories. Because we're all out here just trying to figure it out and trying to do the thing, right? Hearing how other people are managing it is super cool. It's been a crazy, crazy experience, because you don't think that you can do it. Then you start to do it and you start to see a little bit of success and it's like, "Man, I'm doing it."

Meredith Aliff:

You're doing something.

Jason Meggyesy:

I'm doing it. That's just been the dopest thing about this whole process. I think it just goes back to don't be afraid to try something that you're interested in. It could be podcasting. It could be acting club. It can be modeling for the magazine or something. It's like, just do it. That's the biggest thing that I think I can say from not just this podcasting experience, but from my whole college experience is that you never know what's going to happen until you shoot the shot really. That's what you go to do.

Meredith Aliff:

The cool thing is, this is for Miami, but I'm sure for every university all over the place, there is something for everybody.

Jason Meggyesy:

Most definitely.

Meredith Aliff:

Something for everybody. But like we said earlier, you just have to look for it.

Jason Meggyesy:

Exactly.

Meredith Aliff:

It's there. I mean, there are some crazy organizations on this campus that I'll just randomly run into and I'm like, "I didn't even know that this was a thing. This is so cool." There's something here for everybody.

Jason Meggyesy:

Definitely, definitely.

Meredith Aliff:

But I definitely think you found something special with Major Insight.

Jason Meggyesy:

This has been so much fun. Meredith, I think the podcast is in very, very good hands. You got this new official studio that you're in now, and I think you're going to do great. I'm cheering for you and I'll be listening.

Meredith Aliff:

Thank you.

Jason Meggyesy:

Most definitely. Meredith Aliff is a speech pathology and psychology double major here at Miami University, and today we're also excited to welcome her as the podcast's new host. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. If you enjoyed it, share with your friends or anyone interested in navigating college life. Many more episodes are now available wherever you get your podcast.