EIU College of Arts and Humanities

Jessica Closson puts her graduate work in Eastern’s music education program to work in her classrooms at Mattoon Middle School. She credits her work at Eastern with helping her maintain a fresh approach to teaching. "

Chris Carron puts his undergraduate work in history and his graduate work in the Historical Administration program at EIU to work in his job as the Director of Collections at The Indianapolis Children’s Museum. He relishes particularly the variety that his day-to-day job offers. “The day varies a lot,” he recalled for his EIU 360 piece. “I’m in [collections] storage, I’m at my computer, I’m at meetings working with people, sometimes I’m traveling to far-off places to actually collect objects for the museum.”

Leon Kelsick, a 2010 EIU graduate, puts his Art degree to work in his Chicago Mudwing Media art studio. Mudwing’s multifaceted studios deal with animation, videos, illustrations, web, and graphic design, and it provides services to major companies as well as individuals.

"EIU instilled in me a relaxed, caring nature and a culture of practical excellence that prepared me to be effective in the real world. I didn't even realize this at the time though, because I was too busy having so much fun."

"Philosophy is fantastic, it changed my life and really the department here is phenomenal. It's like a grad program where there's actually two students to every one professor. So I'm learning a lot of things and actually going to dinner with my professors and having conversations in the office. It's a great experience to be so close with the people who are teaching. "

Jessica Sedgwick puts her undergraduate degree in Journalism to work in her role as Art Director for the Chicago-based Splash Magazine. She not only writes for the magazine but works in design, layout, and getting the magazine ready for print. Her time at EIU, she says, helped her figure out what she wanted to do with her life, and that was journalism. “If you really want to do it and really want to be a writer or reporter or designer, then you should go for it.”

"EIU Theatre offers a well-rounded education in the field, but also allows for students to emphasize in the specific field they wish. I feel this is the best kind of education – one that allows students to expand, but expand with a great faculty and caring students."

“My English major equipped me with essential critical thinking skills. Through my English studies I learned to consider different ways of thinking and interpretation, which I’m able to transfer to daily events and classroom experiences.”

"I was very involved at Eastern and some of the most valuable lessons I learned that have helped me today in PR, I learned outside of the classroom.”