Allison's story

Here's my post. I'm so bad at this, I had trouble finding it...sigh.I would say that my journey to communication started with my mom. As a littlekid she was always telling me that I shouldn't let people tell me I couldn'tdo things because I was female. Fueled and informed by this, I would get inarguments with my grandmother (who lives in Hadley) about gender issuesstarting from about the age of 6. I remember watching family feud with her anda question on the show was "name things that men do better than women." Shestarted listing things: "well, they're stronger, they know more about cars,they can fix things around the house..." I got angry and came up with counterarguments for everything she said. Ultimately she decided that women hadbetter handwriting (I still show her my chicken scratch to this day).Anyway, my interest in gender issues never really went away. Though I hate theterm, people called me a "tomboy" growing up. I was interested in sports andhad little interest in shopping (which is still true). When I started mycollege career, I played for the university soccer team, which I considered mymajor until midway through my sophomore year. When it came time that I had topick an actual major, a friend of mine (Rosie) on the soccer team told me thatcommunication was a cool major, so I went with that. Quite amazingly, I think,Rosie is also getting her PhD in communication at the University of Utah.After I started taking classes in communication I really felt at home. It wasreassuring for me to hear people apply technical terminology to the genderissues that bothered me. So, in short, I would say that it was something aboutthe world that my mom pointed out to me from an early age that led me towardan interest in communication.Allison