By Laurel O'Keefe STAFF WRITER
Being a full-time student can be demanding – add that stress on top of RA duties, a job on campus, exercise, planning your own recital and coursework for three majors and a minor, and you’ve still only got a slight idea as to what Alex Phipps’s fall semester looked like so far.
The Miami native started her Hofstra career as a music major and now, four years later, has found herself to soon graduate as a triple major in anthropology, global studies and geography with a minor in music.
“I was a vocal performance major but I didn’t like the program because I felt really pigeonholed in what I was doing,” said Phipps. “It was like, what about the rest of the world? What’s actually going on? I felt very alienated from the rest of the Hofstra population.”
As Phipps took on the daunting task of selecting a new major, she found herself slowly escaping the pigeonhole she felt trapped in. “I deliberately chose Hofstra because it has so many majors. I knew I wanted to do music but I didn’t know if exactly what happened [deciding not to major in music] would happen,” Phipps said. “As soon as I found out what [anthropology] was and it was explained to me, I was like, ‘Oh my God I want to do this.’ I took on two majors after that because I liked global studies a lot and I wanted to get more of the economic and political side of current events and the world and the way things work.”
Her third major came as a suggestion from her advisor who recommended geography because many of the classes coincided with global studies. As for a minor, keeping music as a part of her studies was a clear choice for Phipps.
“I was in ballet as a kid. [My parents] put me in soccer for one day and I hated it. I literally called my mom on a payphone because I ran away from the field,” said Phipps. “Running around wasn’t for me, so I did tap, jazz and ballet and baby ballroom.”
Phipps may have abandoned her dance career since childhood, but performing arts seemed to stick as a constant part of her life.“I started acting and I went to this big acting camp in California and I discovered that I could sing, and my teacher discovered that I could sing opera,” said Phipps. “I just kind of fell in love with it.”
With her large number of commitments comes hectic days, so Phipps added music as a minor to ensure she would still have time to sing. As for the motivation to take on so much, Phipps said a difficult upbringing has had something to do with her tenacity.
“Nothing was handed to me as a kid, so I’ve had to fight for everything I have. That’s what inspires me,” said Phipps. “If I graduate and I don’t have an awesome resume then I’m not going to be able to compete with the people who do have [their parents] helping them. The hunger from that kind of drives me forward.”
As a soon to be graduate, Phipps has tried to ensure that she got the most out of her education at Hofstra and has taken advantage of the opportunities afforded to her, like the chance to develop her own personal recital.
“Yes, it’s a lot of work but it’s something that I want. It’s fun to sing on a stage in front of people,” Phipps said. “Putting yourself in such a situation there’s two options, you either succeed or you fail. You don’t do okay at this, so it’s been fun.”
Phipps’s recital took place on Dec. 5 and consisted of 13 songs from different operas in five different languages, all of which require memorization and translation to ensure that she could support an hour of stage time by herself.
“I really enjoy what I do,” said Phipps. “There are so many opportunities at this school that all you have to do is reach out and take them. That’s the beauty of it being a big school.”
As for advice to warming up to the school and getting the most out of being a student, Phipps encourages the idea of keeping busy and finding ways to learn from new experiences.
“Really go out of your comfort zone,” said Phipps. “Do things that you think you would hate. Talk to people you think you would never talk to. Go ahead, spread yourself too thin.”