<p>My son graduated from Willamette this spring with a degree in English. I'm thrilled to report that now -- one month later -- he has landed a full-time job with a top public relations agency in San Francisco. He's already scouting out apartments and is ready to live on his own. He's thrilled to have found "a dream job" at age 22. </p>
<p>When he was a high school senior, weighing admissions offers, I must say that I sometimes wondered if he'd made the right decision choosing Willamette over UC San Diego and Emory University. But he really liked the Willamette campus and community, and Willamette offered a merit scholarship that made the cost about the same as the in-state tuition for a UC campus. And in hindsight, he has received a fabulous education at Willamette.</p>
<p>His English classes never had more than 16 students. He wrote a senior thesis on Walt Whitman's work and received some input, not only from his Willamette instructor, but also from a visiting nationally-recognized Whitman scholar. The Career Center at Willamette helped him obtain credit for two summer internships in public relations in San Diego. He made life-long friends at the school.</p>
<p>Good luck with the college decisions, everyone. I hope that your outcome is as wonderful as ours has been!</p>