In the Jungle; Levi Dewitt

Thank you for joining us for In The Jungle, where you stay connected to the current students at Pittsburgh State University. Now here's your host, Howard Smith. Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grillers of Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we are joined by Levi DeWitt. Is that right? Yes, sir. All right. And Levi, you're from Cainey, Kansas. Yes. How else have you found your way here? Well, I heard about Pittsburgh State University from a mixture of like, friends and family members who have come here, my grandma actually came here back in, back in whenever. I think 1950s, as well, when she was coming here. What's she major in? She... I want to say that she did education, English teaching, specifically. Well, let's go. So you've been exposed to pit states, so it brought you here in a way. What's your major? My major is graphic communications within emphasis in digital media. So what took you that direction?

Why you want to do that? Growing up, me and my brother were always interested in various formats of art. We started out playing a lot of music together and filming, you know, just messing around with some camcorders filming videos and stuff. And then we've discovered like free Photoshop programs and made posters and stuff and just kind of went from there and just made sense to go into some kind of media, some kind of art. Well, you'll never know where you can end up. And that kind of has Steven Spielberg started when he started shooting pictures and things when he was a kid. Something like that. I don't know. So you never know. That's cool. What kind of music was it from? Did you play? I started out playing the guitar and then I learned banjo and the bass and the trap set, the drums. So what kind of music do you enjoy playing then? I played a little bit of this and that. I played some folk music and some garage band, rock and roll and stuff like that. I haven't played in a long time though. Yeah.

Well, that's fun. That's good stuff to get into. Now I know while you've been here at Pitt State that you've been involved with the International Office, tell me a little bit about what you do over at the International Office and why that's a passion for you. Yeah. I actually started last semester getting involved with the International Office by signing up for the Pitt Pell Program. Well, my first day of orientation I ran into Miss Brenda Hawkins, who's kind of behind that. She told me about it at the orientation event and apparently you get a kind of paired up with an international student and you're supposed to spend time with them each week to get to know them and so the idea is the domestic students get a chance to get involved with some of the international students and their cultures and the international students get a chance to get some of the cultural experience of the US while they're here. You're supposed to invite them over to go to your Thanksgiving dinner, come spend Christmas with you and stuff like that. So I got paired up with a Chinese student named Vincent. His Chinese name was Lee Waging but he was awesome. He basically, we hit it off right from the beginning, it came best of friends by the

end of the semester. It felt like a brother to me. Wow. So have you had any other Pitt Pell users that was your first one? That was my first one last semester. I got signed up for the program again this semester and actually I got three Pitt Pells this semester because there weren't enough domestic American male students signing up for the program so they ended up pairing me with three different guys I have, two students from Kazakhstan and a student from South Korea. What do you think that is the biggest benefit of being in this program from your standpoint? Well for us college and nestled in the middle of Kansas, it's an exceptional way and awesome opportunity to get to experience some of the wider world and get to see people from other cultures and all the students who have come here, both the semesters and some of the highest quality people, just some of the nicest and most caring people that I've met. Well we've got other students out there that are listeners so I think that your endorsements are good things so maybe some others will sign up. Maybe so.

Now my interesting is you have traveled abroad yourself. Yes, that's correct. Tell me a little bit about that. So the first time I traveled abroad it was just a brief visit to South Korea actually. My uncle was in the US Air Force and he was stationed at a Air Force based on there and so we went and spent a Thanksgiving with him and then of course you know some small trips to Canada and stuff who hasn't done that but my big international experience was in 2013 when my dad got a job in South America in a smaller country called Bolivia. So you actually resided there for a little bit then? Yeah, I ended up spending two years total in Bolivia so far, lived one year with my family down there with my dad's job and then came back and finished high school in Colorado and then the day I finished with the high school I hopped on a plane and went back to Bolivia by myself and I spent a year volunteering at an orphanage there. Wow.

So then it actually kind of leads then into your minor area too which is international business? Yeah. So you're going to put an international business with graphic communication. What kind of position do you think you'll get into with that? Doing the pairing of the major minor was kind of like a cover all my basis scheme. So if I can't, if I can get a job with doing something artsy and graphicsy you know that's cool but if I get a minor in international business I couldn't at least get a job somewhere and after my experience living internationally I definitely want to plan to live at least partially and internationally in the future if not end up living forever in some country or another. So that's kind of why I have the international business is to try and open my options for working internationally again. Well that's one of the nice things about Pitt State. With flat tuition you can literally take hours in other areas and move towards other degrees so taking advantage of that this semester. I'll tell you. 20 credit hours. Really? Yeah.

That is good. Well that's what you should do. Take advantage of that. Pitt State and opportunities here or so. Has there been any courses that have challenged you? What might be the toughest course you took today? Well there's only my second semester so I'm doing mostly entry level stuff so far of it. Right. I took a class called Comparative Political Institutions taught by Mr. Belinsky over at Rest Hall. That one was a pretty challenging class because it was basically an international politics just learning about the government systems of all the other countries around the world. And most of that was just so new to me. I never didn't realize that a government could be different in so many ways that governments can be different from our own. Well you merged your background and your education together well. What advice would you give to a student that was considering Pitt State? What would you tell them as to why they ought to consider coming to school here? First off, awesome campus. Lots of nice people. It's smaller so you get definitely a personalized feel, personalized education. I know almost all of my professors can have one-on-one conversations with them almost whenever

I need to or whenever I want to. Tons of awesome students, beautiful campus, nice town, everything. And that proves why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining us in the jungle and leave my thanks for me and with us today. We appreciate having you on the show. Join us for in the jungle, Wednesday afternoons at 350 and Friday mornings at 850 here on KRPS.