Christopher Mastrangelo:
CLASS OF 1978
Phillips AcademyClass of 1978
Andover, MA
Temple UniversityClass of 1991
Philadelphia, PA
University of Nebraska - OmahaClass of 1989
Omaha, NE
Boston UniversityClass of 1985
Boston, MA
University of PennsylvaniaClass of 1983
Philadelphia, PA
Christopher's Story
Life
I just read a few interesting biographies of people who visited my page, and I realized that *I* didn't have a bio of my own. You can see all my community and school affiliations in chronological order, but that doesn't really begin to tell the story. So where should I begin?
I have been living essentially "on my own" since I went away to boarding school at age 14 in the 1970s. At age 17, I had never been outside New England, or even Massachusetts more than a few times. In 1978 I graduated high school and spent a year backpacking around the country- visiting the desert southwest, the Florida keys, the Hamptons, and the lakes of upstate New York. In one year (1978) I flew on an airplane for the first time, walked on Lake Michigan when it was frozen, crossed the Mississippi river (twice), rode the world's longest aerial tramway, hiked and camped in the Rocky Mountains, and even sailed in a regatta.
Then I returned to Boston and lived in Back Bay while applying to colleges. To this day, nobody can beat the pizza at Kenmore Square Pizza Pad at 3 AM after last call. When I was 18, the drinking age in Massachusetts was 18, so I could go to clubs legally. When I turned 19, they raised it to 20, and I was not "grandfathered in." Go figure. When I went to Penn, the legal drinking age was 21, but the on campus bars didn't "card" (ID) anyone, so the LCB would raid Doc's and Smoke's on a regular basis. But that's another story.
TO BE CONTINUED
School
I guess this is the section where you talk about high school? I could not begin to say enough about Andover in 4000 words or less, except that it "spoiled me" to all other forms of higher education- when I got to college, I was academically overprepared and socially underprepared. At age 18, after four years at the finest prep school in the country, I believed the illusion that teachers actually cared about their students and that a school administrators job was to look out for their students best interests. Then I arrived at a large urban university and found myself treated like a "number," attending crowded freshman lectures where the "professor" could barely speak English and the teaching assistants were only doing it to get tuition assistance. And I was PAYING for this privilege! When you read the college section, you will see that I did not let my disillusionment get me down.
But let me talk about why I got involved with this Classmates.com website in the first place. My high school and college(s) have their own alumni websites, so I don't really "need" this site. I got so many of those annoying emails that my curiosity finally got the best of me. But this site is not so bad- for a few bucks a year you get the premium features, and it is interesting to see who else is "out there."
But honestly, I started out looking for old girlfriends. Most of the other "social networking" sites that I have read about or researched are totally bogus- especially online dating sites (I am married, but so I hear!). The virtual environment online makes the opportunities for fraud endless, and PT Barnum's dictum that a sucker is born every minute gets vindicated every time a web-newbie gets a free AOL account with their new PC at Best Buy. How else can you explain the persistence of Nigerian Scams and other bogus "phishing" emails that people continue to fall for? But I digress...
Lately I have been thinking about my junior high school (grades 6-8 aka "middle school") experience- probably because my own children are at that age (12 and 9) and are selected for the "gifted and talented" program as I was at the same age.
In sixth grade I was introduced to a teacher who became a mentor and role model for me for the rest of my life. Jim Hutchison was an amazing person and a great teacher- he was the English teacher on the team for the three years I attended Harrington School in East Cambridge. He still teaches for the academically talented program which has since moved to the Kennedy School on Spring Street. My best friend growing up, Richie Kelly from the same Cambridgeport neighborhood, is currently a teacher at the Kennedy School. I emailed him last week and asked him, if he runs into Jim Hutchison in the hallway, to mention that I have been thinking about him. It is a rare thing- if it happens more than once in your lifetime you are lucky- to have someone in your life who is such a major influence on you academically, intellectually, and personally that you call them your teacher, mentor, and friend for life. It is amazing to me to realize that I met Jim when I was 10 years old! And yet, even at age 18, when I was in jam, I could still call him up and ask him for help, and he would have given me the shirt off his back if I asked!
My whole vision of the world, and life-long love of learning, was shaped in part by this man. I really want him to know how many lives he touched and changed just by being a great role model and inspiration. Not to mention smart, and good looking (according to my mother)!
Freshman year at Andover, my English teacher and Crew coach, Bill Brown, taught me how to "write well," and gave me a true appreciation of poetry. My experiences on the Merrimack river in the Freshman eight shell were a metaphor for life- you can only be successful when the whole team is in synch, and you win races when you take calculated risks and push the envelope.
College
College - hmm, this is a long story.. let's call it "The Road Less Traveled." I have transcripts from seven(7) schools (undergrad) and one graduate school (MS in CS from Drexel 1993). I'm not even counting the psych class I took at Harvard summer session while still...Expand for more
in high school. Can you believe BF Skinner actually put his own daughter in a box? Anyway...
With a combined SAT score of over 1400, I applied to ten schools, and got admitted to most of them, but only five offered financial aid, so I went to the one that offered me the most $$... University of Pennsylvania- an Ivy League school (which is NOT Penn State!). If I had not gone to Penn, I would not have met the woman who would eventually become my wife seven years later. I passed up a four year all-expenses-paid honor scholarship to UMass to go to school out of state. I figure if I hadn't tried, I would always be asking "What if?" for the rest of my life.
1979-1983:
Crazy roommates, frat parties, vodka punch, beer pong, quarters- I did it all, and lived it to the max. I am an honorary member of the Penn class of 1983 even though technically I didn't graduate. During my sophomore year, due to a high number of incompletes (3), I was placed on involuntary leave of absence, but I continued to live off campus and remained active in the social scene. You have seen "Animal House" right? My GPA was higher than Bluto's, but my bar bill at the frat house was higher.
Not to make it seem like it was all one big party... while Susan and most of our friends managed to graduate in 1983, I worked off campus at a number of jobs- see the workplace section for more details. Many of our "college friends" from 1982-83 are still our friends today, even though they are scattered all around the country.
STUDENT WITHOUT PORTFOLIO:
It's easy to make fun of the "perpetual student" who keeps taking classes but never seems to graduate. While working my way through college one or two classes at a time, I learned that there was an advantage to being in your mid-20s and having a valid student ID. Especially in Philly or Boston... you get into movies half-price, and you can take advantage of a number of entertainment and cultural opportunities at almost all the schools in the area even if you go to a different school.
Here is an old trick- register for a class to get the little sticker on the back of the ID that says you are a current student (it probably wouldn't work today because everything is digital and they probably just swipe your card now). Then withdraw from the class the day before the deadline for a 100 percent refund. Now you have a "valid" ID that gets you into the library, the dorms, all the on-campus events, and you can eat at the student cafeteria. Most places you just flash it and they don't really look that closely at the ID anyway. What's not to like about this plan? I always wanted to write a book like Abbie Hoffman.
1984-85: THE "B.U." YEARS- Back to Beantown; the original plan was to work at the B.U. engineering library and get tuition assistance as an employee of the university. It almost worked, but it was so slow it was like Chinese water torture. By 1985 most of my friends had already graduated and had "real" jobs. So I enlisted in the military...
1987-1989: University of Nebraska at Omaha- While in the USAF full-time, I took classes part-time and completed *ALL* the computer science classes needed for the major (with a 3.9 GPA), but I still did not graduate until I moved back east.
All of my degrees are from schools in Philadelphia...
1990-1991: Back to Philly: Temple University (BA in Math; Summa Cum Laude). Dr Cosby, PhD, Mr Jello Pudding Pops himself spoke at the graduation but I was too busy working as a consultant in the computer lab at the time, so I watched it on closed-circuit TV.
1991-93: Teaching Assistant at Drexel University Math and Computer Science Dept (MS in CS; Hi Ann Marie!)
THE REST IS HISTORY...
Workplace
1978-79:
While waiting to hear about college, I worked in Harvard Square at Gnomon Copy, and made friends with the manager of the Rowinsky's cheesecake store next door. So I started filling in for her part time on nights and weekends, working for minimum wage and all the cheesecake I could eat(!). I used to LOVE cheesecake! After that year, I got so OD'ed on it, I can't even look at another piece.
1981-83:
Remember that scene in "National Treasure" when they hide out in Urban Outfitters and change their clothes, talking to each other over the top of the dressing rooms? I practically *built* that store with my bare hands! Well, actually, I was working for the original Urban Outfitters flagship store in the West Philly/Penn Campus area when they opened the "new" store on Rittenhouse Square, and I became the manager of shipping and receiving. When they moved into the renovated mansion at 18th and Walnut, I really did help construct most of the displays, shelves, dividers, etc. So when I see that movie, I get all excited because the Philadephia sequence consists entirely of places where I lived and worked! The movie also starts in DC at the National Archives and then progresses to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston... the reverse order of my migration, but all places were we have family!
I also managed a branch of "Encore Books" at 18th and Chestnut. The family that started the chain, the Schlesingers (David began selling used textbooks out of the back of a truck on the Penn campus), sold the business to a big bookstore chain and used the money to start another retail business called "Zany Brainy" - remember that one? That also got bought by another megaglomerate that went Chapter 11 and closed all the stores. Too bad for parents of young children, but in a way, it is part of the natural cycle of things, because now there are new "mom and pop" small children's stores popping up all over the place to fill the void.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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