Though having to endure a series of bizarre circumstances and university bureaucracy, all while exhibiting a lot of perseverance, Carrie Courogen, 21 has finally ended up in her dream city and at her dream school. Formally a film major in Philadelphia at Temple University, now a double major in Journalism and Politics at New York University, Courogen embodies the diverse, Generation Y woman. With more interests and passions than she can fill the too short twenty-four hour day with, Courogen sure tries to with her senior editorial position on NYU’s daily student run newspaper, theWashington Square News, her marathon running style (no, really-she ran the 2011 ING New York City Marathon), a part time job and that little thing called college. Here, Courogen reveals her many interests, idols, sense of humor and what she really wants to do with her NYU degree.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again: I went to temple freshman year because I didn’t get into NYU right away from high school…which sucked.

I’ve known that I wanted to go to NYU since seventh grade so I was figured “alright, go to Temple, then transfer.” So I did. I applied to transfer the spring of my freshman year.

Red Tape: Temple was really, really bad administratively and they didn’t send my transcript three times. By the time NYU finally got it, it was too late for the fall semester.

SO close: The NYU Admissions Office basically told me: “Hey we like you, but we can’t take you for the fall semester because we’re full. Do you want to remain under consideration for the spring? It’s pretty certain that you’ll get in, but it’s not one hundred percent.”

So I said okay.
In the mean time: I stayed at home [in Camp Hill, PA] for sophomore year and took classes at community college, which was so awful that I wanted to bang my head against the desk.
I also applied to more schools incase it didn’t work out with NYU, but it did. I came here in the spring of my sophomore year.
It was a long, complicated path, but I’m here now so that’s it and that’s all that matters.
Take two: I was a film major my freshman year. I knew that I wanted to do either film or journalism and I had a lot of journalism experience from high school, so I thought I’d try film for a year and see how it goes.
I wanted to be a screen writer, so I had to take classes about film making…and I’m just so not a film maker. I’d be directing and be like “Uummmm. Okay. Just start…maybe.” I made a lot of documentaries because then I didn’t have to tell people what to do. [When I transferred to NYU] I thought maybe this wasn’t for me and that I’d go back to being a journalist; go back to what I’m good at.
What do I plan on doing with my degree?: I plan on displaying it in my living room.
Long term: Ten years is so far from now. I will be thirty-one. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have seen myself here. In ten years…hopefully I’m in a relationship at least.
On a day off I like to: Go running in Central Park. Always.

New York City moments: I’ve been able to meet two of my adolescent heroes since I’ve been here. I went to the Tina Fey book signing and met her and I met Joan Didion. She [Didion] gave me writing advice and I nearly died.

 Lessons learned:
I wish that I had asked more questions to the interviewee. I believe I had enough material to choose from, but I would have liked to have more. At the time of the interview, I thought I had enough good quotes and information, but next time I would like  to have more. Being over prepared is certainly better than under prepared.
Written by Margaret Cohn