Now A Word From Our Alumni: Bryanna Menard

My first visit to NVU-Lyndon (then Lyndon State College) was at the end of December, 2016. I had just finished the fall semester of my third year of community college. My fiance and I took a “Happy Survived Finals” trip to the Northeast Kingdom from our home in southern Maine, stayed at a lovely inn on Lake Willoughby, and did a brief drive around the college on our way home. We both fell in love with the area and I completed my college application to Lyndon the following January. 

Introduction – aka the Info Dump

Hello. My name is Bryanna Menard (originally Bryanna Smith) and I was a student at Lyndon State College and NVU-Lyndon from September, 2017 to May, 2019. I’m pronoun indifferent but typically use she/they pronouns. Before coming to Lyndon I spent three years at York County Community College, receiving two AAS in Digital Media: Animation and Information Technology, and a Certificate in Web Development. I graduated from NVU-Lyndon with a BFA in Animation and Illustration with dual focuses in Animation and Illustration, and Game Design, and an AS in Computing. While at Lyndon I served as the SGA Representative and Editor-in-Chief for The Critic, a Peer Leader, the Advertising Coordinator for CAB, a Computer Science Tutor, and a Career Services work study assistant in Academic Support. I also submitted pieces to and won awards at both juried student art shows that occurred while I was a student. 

Life at Lyndon

The summer before starting at Lyndon State College, my fiance and I spent about three months commuting between our newly rented apartment in Lyndonville and our jobs in Ogunquit, Maine. We slowly moved into our first place together as the school year approached, and settled into a routine that had us driving the three hours between locations on Sunday and Wednesday evenings. Once school began we were as settled as we could be, and ready to face life in a new state.

I made my first friends at Lyndon during Fall Kick Off. My peer group consisted largely of fellow art students, and I saw many of them during classes throughout the next semester. As a transfer student, my class schedule was a mix of high level art classes and lower level electives. In this way I became slightly distanced from my peer group, most of which were first year students in first year classes.

My first class at Lyndon was Character Design with Robby Gilbert. He had the whole class go outside and sit together on the grass for introductions. Then we drew clouds and our homework was to turn those clouds into characters. This assignment and class set the stage for the unique experience that was learning art at Lyndon State College. 

Other notable life-changing assignments included the “100 Somethings” project for the Visual Arts Seminar class. We had to pick a subject and draw one hundred variations of that subject in a single semester. I chose to do bonsai trees, and spent most of my weekends painting upwards of ten trees each week to finish the assignment in time. It was probably the most rigorous art assignment I’ve ever had, and I learned a lot about painting and composition during its completion. 

The rest of the first year went by fairly fast. I joined The Critic as its SGA Rep, as the paper struggled to revive after almost becoming non-existent. Every two weeks I took detailed notes on the SGA meetings–sometimes these meetings were pleasant and quick, while sometimes they felt like they dragged on for hours, but it was always worth it to help decide things that would impact the campus community. The rest of my time was spent hiding in Harvey with homework or chilling at the front desk of Academic Support–Pi Day was a personal favorite of mine and nothing beat the puns of Shakespeare’s Birthday.

As we neared the middle of the spring semester, I made a few choices that would ultimately shape my second year at Lyndon and where I would go afterwards. First, I spent a slow-homework weekend following a game tutorial on YouTube and ended up submitting my personalized results to the juried Student Art Show. Running Forever, as I called it, went on to win Gold in the Animation category, and furthered my resolve to go into Game Design. Second, I decided to run for the Editor-in-Chief of The Critic for the following year, refusing to let the school newspaper fade away into the abyss of defunct clubs. Finally, I applied to be a Peer Leader and was accepted. Suddenly my summer was full of training, orientations, and gearing up for my senior year.  

Despite being a commuter, I practically lived on campus. This fact only became more and more true as summer training commenced. I became known as the peer leader who was always sick at orientation, and went on to be almost boo’d (or perhaps actually boo’d, I don’t remember) during our Fall Kick Off NVU’s Got Talent show as a judge who had to vote down everyone’s favorite vine duo–it was scripted, I promise. 

The rest of my senior year went by as a productive and overwhelming blur. I put the finishing touches on the Animation Workshop’s senior animation just in time for the Vermont Animation Festival in October. I did my best to help along a group of wonderful first year students as their peer leader. At some point I ended up as a member of CAB, and then its Advertising Coordinator which filled my days with office hours full of poster making. And I even managed to get The Critic its own domain name and website for its future as NVU-Lyndon’s student newspaper.

Many other events and friendships shaped my senior year at Lyndon, but to do any of them justice I would need to double this word count and it’s already long enough as it is. Suffice it to say, it was the Lyndon community and organizations that helped me be where I am today (and we’ll get to where that is soon). 

In May, 2019 I walked across the stage as a newly graduated NVU-Lyndon student. I also walked off the stage and down the wrong aisle, almost getting lost before turning around to correctly shake my faculties’ hands and actually return to my seat. 

Life after Lyndon

During my senior portfolio class, we all had to submit cover letters to potential employers as an assignment. Instead, I was allowed to submit a graduate school application essay. After finishing this assignment, I realized I may as well submit the graduate application–since I had basically completed everything I needed for it. And this is how I was accepted to Laguna College of Art and Design’s Game Design MFA program, a remote program located in Laguna Beach, California. 

At the end of the following August, I was beginning my remote graduate classes with professors renowned in the field of game development, all because I was allowed to be myself at Lyndon and focus on the things that interested me most. I have since completed two semesters and a summer session, surviving finals weeks, projects, beginning a thesis paper, and even making it through the start of COVID-19 (my program was already remote, so the adjustment was rather minimal at first). All while still living in Lyndonville, with the comforting sight of my alma mater on the hill above me (and with its printing capabilities at the ready). 

I’m currently gearing up for the beginning of my second year, and getting into the full swing of designing my thesis game: You Don’t Look Sick (a game about invisible illnesses and hidden disabilities, and how they impact day-to-day life of the people who experience them). I got married in January, and have spent the last seven (almost eight) months living with my new husband exactly the same way we had lived together while I was attending Lyndon, just with less early morning commutes. 

My life after Lyndon has been much the same as my life at Lyndon. I’ve still had the same homework deadlines, the same passion dedicated to projects, and even the same little apartment with the same furniture. At least the computer is a new one.

Ultimately, college is what you make of it and I’m glad I was able to use NVU-Lyndon as a springboard to further what I intend to “make of it.” In closing, I originally wanted to write something profound about moving forward, being kind to yourself, staying strong through adversity, and following your dreams. Instead, I just want to say, “thank you” for reading this article about my experiences as an NVU-Lyndon student. 

 

Feature Photo by Bryanna Menard || One of my first few photographs on campus. The ducks are the cutest.