By: Rebeka Porter  

Students at Quincy University come here for many reasons. Some students travel great distances for the programs QU has to offer. Ebony McCray has traveled 1,521 miles from Arizona to participate on the swim team and marching band.

Her mother encouraged her to join a sim team when she was younger and McCray has always enjoyed competing.

“(I) love the ability to block out everything. It’s just me in the water” McCray said.

As for her love of music, she’s not sure when her passion began. Music has always been a part of her life. She really connected with it when she started playing guitar.

When she was in the sixth grade, McCray started playing the flute. Since then, she’s always been involved in some form of music programs.

“I can’t ever see myself not being involved in music,” McCray said.

During McCray’s junior year of high school, her mother was contacted by the QU swim coach. This gave her the opportunity to find out more information about QU.

McCray explained that when she was narrowing down her choices for college, marching band was the deciding factor in her choice to attend QU. She was looking at a school in Kansas but it didn’t have a marching band.

One of McCray’s favorite things about QU is the scenery.

“It’s a lot different from Arizona. It’s a really small school. I’ve never been to a private school and I thought the experience would be different,” McCray said.

She also loves running into similar faces at QU.

“I like how small the school is. Sure I see new people sometimes, but for the most part no one is really a complete stranger,” McCray said.

McCray is currently majoring in exercise science, which has always made sense to her because she’s an athlete. However, she is thinking about changing it to pre-medical sciences.

“I’m considering changing it because I feel like I can challenge myself to do better. A challenge makes everything more interesting. I’m also interested in astronomy even though I don’t know a whole lot about it. And I love chemistry,” McCray said.

McCray is enjoying her schedule for the fall semester. She really likes how her professors care about her performance in class.

She is confident that her time at QU is going to be well spent.

“I feel like it is too soon to tell if QU has helped me grow as a person, but I feel that I will become a more positive person. A combination of the challenges I would have to take and the positive attitude of all the professors and classmates will help me build a really positive mindset,” McCray said.