Saturday, June 21, 2025
  • Advertise
  • Submit Story Idea
  • Submit Event
Arlington Today Magazine
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Arlington News
    • Community
    • Commentary
    • Business and Education
    • Featured
    • People
    • Wellness
    • Scene
    • Design and Interiors
    • Uncategorized
  • Current Issue & Digital Archives
  • Join the Newsletter
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • Login
  • Register
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Arlington News
    • Community
    • Commentary
    • Business and Education
    • Featured
    • People
    • Wellness
    • Scene
    • Design and Interiors
    • Uncategorized
  • Current Issue & Digital Archives
  • Join the Newsletter
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Arlington Today Magazine
Home People

Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities, such as a 9-to- 5 job, a mortgage, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.

Kenneth Perkins by Kenneth Perkins
July 27, 2016
in People
0 0
0
Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities, such as a 9-to- 5 job, a mortgage, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups.
0
SHARES
88
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Texas Appliance April 2020

June-Around-Town-1

Karen McAlister says she’s ready.

Ready to put away the textbooks, the class schedules, the study groups, the late night coffee runs, the dozing off on the student center couch only to awake to a lost hour. Or two.

Related posts

Enduring Leadership, Enduring Impact:  A Culture of People-Centered Leadership at Arlington Classics Academy

Enduring Leadership, Enduring Impact: A Culture of People-Centered Leadership at Arlington Classics Academy

June 2, 2025
ArlingtonClassicsAcademy

Where Tradition Meets Trust: Parents Tell Us Why They Choose Arlington Classics Academy

June 2, 2025

Yep. She’s ready for adulting.

Ready for the scary, perplexing real world outside the University of Texas Arlington college bubble where the Sea of Life is stormy and choppy and couldn’t care less about those student loans wrapped around her ankles like perpetual body weights.

“Yeah, I’m ready for that, too,” she claims.

Well, kind of. Maybe. Probably.

McAlister is sitting outside the campus Starbucks on a warm Wednesday. She’s smiling and cheerful and expressive because after six years she’s done. Done with undergraduate degrees in Advertising and Public Relations, done with a master’s in Communications.

It has been an interesting ride,

some eight majors, countless extracurriculars, a 4.0 GPA, and one husband later. Many college students will enter their adulting phase this month not knowing what they will do, how or when. At least McAlister knows what she won’t do, since she pretty much tried them all.

We’re joking, but there was criminal justice and news broadcasting and psychology and history and even a flirtation with law. None stuck.

In fact, a strange thing occurred to McAlister while en route to living happily ever after in communications. She fell in love with the inner workings of student development. Over her college career she has held a number of jobs in Student Affairs, from marketing with The Shorthorn student newspaper, to student legal services, the Center for Students with Recovery office and multicultural affairs. She enjoyed advising students in the women’s leadership program.

“Like a lot of my classmates I’ve been trying to figure out what works best for me career-wise,” McAlister says. “What I kind of landed on is staying in a college environment. I had never thought about a career in student development but I really, really enjoy helping other college students. I said, ‘wow, I like this. I can do this.'”

McAlister is from a UTA family. Mom went there. Dad went there. Her brother went there. An aunt and uncle went there. She met her husband, David, during a summer orientation session her sophomore year when their recruiting booths (he was there for his fraternity, she with Student Legal Services) were side by side.

Awkward small talk led to a comfortable association,

which led to friendship, which led to a date, which led to a November, 2013 wedding.

A 2013 graduate, David McAlister is a systems engineer for the City of Lewisville.

While Karen McAlister seems better positioned than most for adulting, leaving the college bubble is a mixture of excitement and angst.

“There is a certain amount of fear, even with a master’s degree,” she says. “Life, college debt. It’s all about to hit. What do I do with all this? But being educated is a leg up on the game already. You can make something of an education. It may not be exactly what you want at first. But you have something some don’t have. Your education can’t be taken away from you.”

McAlister has already shown her resolve. A month into her graduate program her father passed; right before exams, her mother suffered a heart attack and underwent a quadruple bypass. How she maintained her strong academic record is a testament to her resilience and is a pretty good indicator of how have she’ll manage in the work world.

In fact, of all the things she’s accomplished at UTA, what stand out are not only speaking to the entire incoming freshman class, but also teaching them the school fight song. Speaking in public wasn’t all that comfortable before, but she wowed them. Then there was crooning that fight song. “I can’t hold a tune,” McAlister says, smiling broadly.

So she did what any straight A, two-time finalist for UTA Outstanding Student Leader would do. “I brought along someone who could,” she says. Yep. She’s ready.

 

Tags: AdultingGraduationUTA
72Sold March 2020

Follow Us

    The Instagram Access Token is expired, Go to the Customizer > JNews : Social, Like & View > Instagram Feed Setting, to refresh it.
  • Soon-to-open Mansfield H-E-B causes shopping frenzy

    Soon-to-open Mansfield H-E-B causes shopping frenzy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Gregory “Pappy” Boyington

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • All Star Voting 2024

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • 12 Mighty Orphans: There’s a fascinating ‘story behind the story’ regarding this fine film

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Local moms share what makes the day special to them

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Arlington Texas Area News and Events Magazine

Follow us on social media:

Recent News

  • Community Vertacat Handicap Cart Fundraiser
  • 60th Annual Independence Day Parade
  • Welcome to our new “Deep Dive” audiomag!

Category

  • Arlington News
  • Business and Education
  • Commentary
  • Community
  • Design and Interiors
  • Featured
  • People
  • Scene
  • Sports
  • Uncategorized
  • Wellness

Recent News

Community Vertacat Handicap Cart Fundraiser

Community Vertacat Handicap Cart Fundraiser

June 18, 2025
60th Annual Independence Day Parade

60th Annual Independence Day Parade

June 18, 2025
  • Advertise
  • Submit Story Idea
  • Submit Event

© 2023 Arlington Today - Designed by

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Arlington News
    • Community
    • People
    • Commentary
    • Business and Education
    • Featured
    • Wellness
    • Scene
    • Design and Interiors
  • Current Issue & Digital Archives
  • Join the Newsletter
  • Contact Us

© 2023 Arlington Today - Designed by