Alumni Series: Brittany Hammond
The Beginning:
I went to a 5A high school located in the mid-cities. When we seniors were announcing our selected colleges and universities, I was certain that I was bound for a D1, Big 12 Texas school. My rank was good, my scores were good, and I had a chance. When you’re a senior you want to go where your friends are going. You want to go somewhere with notoriety.
Tarleton was a smaller school in 2005. I knew a few people who had gone there, in fact one of my best childhood friends just a year older was living on campus and loving TSU life, but I just was determined to attend the BIGGER and more well known school. Plus I wasn’t an agriculture major so why should I go to “that small ag school as some people referred to it.”
I was accepted several places but not necessarily the one I wanted. After putting off the decision for too long, I decided at the last minute to join my friend at TSU. I always told myself I would transfer once I got the first year done. I skipped Duck Camp because I just knew I wouldn’t be staying. Along the way my freshman year I picked up the lingo and the traditions a bit. I didn’t have many friends and most of the first semester I went home every chance I could get.
What changed my Tarleton experience?
What happened in the late fall I wouldn’t have predicted and it changed my Tarleton trajectory. My childhood friend moved home to be closer to family and I felt like I was left alone. I had a few friends but WHAT NOW? My “bestie” was gone! Luckily for me I have never met a stranger so I reached out to the girl who sat in front of me in Biology to study and hang out.
She was involved in campus life and through her I started making new friends, attending events on campus, and really enjoying the things Tarleton and Stephenville had to offer. It only took that one following spring semester to change everything. I rushed Phi Mu the following fall, became a Duck Camp leader, and a Texan Tour guide. I got a job on campus in Admissions which ended up starting a career path for me in Higher Education after graduation. I had the honor of being a TTS, and I graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
Now as an Alumna:
It is luck alone that my husband, whom I met years later, is also a Tarleton Texan. Now that we are alumni, we enjoy going back every year for Homecoming Week and various other alumni events. We love to see more Tarleton stickers on vehicles and shirts around Fort Worth and we see them more now than ever before. My friends from Tarleton have been my bridesmaids, have thrown be baby showers, and are some of my very best friends. They really are friendships that have stood the test of time!
Looking back:
It was not the way I thought things would go when I picked a school at 18 years old but it has made all the difference. My advice is to take a chance whether that be on Tarleton as your college choice or the things you do once you get there! Go to Duck Camp, go to the game, befriend the student in front of you, or become a part of an organization. You just never know what it may bring. Your college experience is what you put into it. Looking back I am thankful for my journey and my leap of faith to get involved. It made all the difference!
“But I had been here only a short while until I became a small part of the school, and the school a large part of me. Now Tarleton holds a spot in my heart that no other school will ever be able to reach.”
Robert Wood, TSU ’28
HEY OSCAR P!
Brittany Brady Hammond, TSU ’10
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