Amanda Vasilikos

By Kristin Vorce

It happened when she was in New York interning at Forbes Magazine in the summer of 2003. A blackout had spread throughout the city. Sweaty New Yorkers evacuated subways and groaned as police officers directed bumper-to-bumper traffic.

That’s when Amanda Vasilikos decided Manhattan was the place to be.

“One of the girls in my department basically took me under her wing because no one knew what was going on and it was pretty scary,” she says. “She was pretty young, had a nice apartment, and a pretty cool life.”

Kaitlyn DeRoy

By Sonia Dasgupta

“Mom! I’m gonna try the triple axle!” screamed 9-year-old Kaitlyn DeRoy.

She skated around the rink, attempted a jump and made it, when a skate coach noticed her and decided to help her improve.

Soon after, senior English major Kaitlyn began regular lessons and now, 12 years later, she has traveled across the country competing in skating competitions and she is the president of the university’s club ice skating team.

Katie Bennett

By Adam Asher

If you were to call Katie Bennett at one of her busier moments in the day, you might get an answering machine message urging you to email her for an appointment.

“I get really annoyed when sources call back and don’t leave a message,” she says.

The answering machine is for people who she is looking to interview or has done so in the past.

At the age of 20, many students are still clueless about a possible career path. Katie, on the other hand, has it all planned out. She’s wants to be a medical journalist.

Mr. Personality

By Katie Bennett

Adam Asher is a big man on campus.

“My friends say I’m the guy who knows everybody on campus,” he says — and his friends aren’t kidding. In walking about 200 feet, Adam stopped three times to talk to friends.

Adam is ridiculously outgoing and extremely friendly, and his Facebook photos prove it. Whether looking at him hung-over in only smiley-face boxers or attempting to eat “the dome of the rock” in Jerusalem, Adam shows he learned early on to discard feelings of self-consciousness or fear of embarrassment.

Alex Honeysett

By Jena Levy

Growing up, Alex Honeysett was not a big traveler.

“The farthest my family and I have ever traveled was vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard every August,” she says.

Wanting to put a stamp in her empty passport, she spent her summer studying in Rome, Italy.

Everything about her trip appeared to be standard for study abroad. She was in Rome from the beginning of June through the beginning of August. Alex, a communication and journalism major from New Rochelle, N.Y. , took a screen writing class every day where “the teacher was an Italian hippie.”

Geoff Schoenberg

By Dane Secor

The first thing you notice when you walk into Geoff Schoenberg’s living room is the rich smell of leather and a stack of polished rifles leaning against his couch. When you take a closer look, you might wonder why you notice gun belts, holsters and six-shooters.

Geoff spends his summers robbing banks.

Mike LoRe

By Laura Lopez

Enjoying the simmering summer sun or a cool ocean breeze is a common pastime for many students during break. Not Mike LoRé , who was confined to playing cards with his family in their Seaside Park bungalow. It’s not that Mike doesn’t enjoy the beach. In fact, the beach is a great love of his — along with soccer, the sport that ruined his summer.

“Sports and the beach, both taken away this summer,” he says.

It was May. Before Mike could pack up his belongings and head home, he played in the last game of intramural soccer. The game that would “kill his summer,” he says.

Joanna Wagner

By Sarah Lipman

“Luna” doesn’t just mean “moon” to Joanna Wagner, a sophomore Spanish language major.

To her it has a much more significant meaning. At least five days a week, rain or shine, the Long Island native drives a half hour away to a barn where her “best and most loyal friend,” Luna, a 12-year-old bay thoroughbred mare, resides since Joanna’s start at the university.

Luna, or Lulu, as Joanna sometimes refers to her, was a gift from her father in late 2000.

“He had cancer and thought he was dying, and he wanted to leave me with something special,” she says.

Ashley Duran

By Lori Goldson

“My mother guilt-tripped me into moving here,” Ashley Durán says of Delaware. “She told me I would have my own space, and it would be good for me to be near the family.”

Two years ago, no one could have told the 21-year-old English major she would spend her junior year of college at the university.

Alas, here she is, two years later residing with her Colombian father, Puerto Rican mother, 18-year-old sister, Tiffany, and 13-year-old brother, Rocky.

Jena Levy

By Alex Honeysett

Jena Levy may belong to a sorority, involve herself in campus activities, and otherwise seem like the stereotypical college student, but she has one debilitating fear: Jena is afraid to drive on highways.

“I don’t remember when it started,” Jena says. “I just know it was something I didn’t want to do. And now it’s been so long I just can’t imagine doing it.”

A native of northern New Jersey, Jena relies on her friends and public transportation to get from place to place. She’s never brought her car to school because of the two-hour trek down I-95. Jena’s parents tease her that her 15-year-old sister will soon be driving her down to school.