Instructor, students share life success pathways

By Yueying Zhu reporter

NE history instructor Andrew Hollinger reflects on what it takes to become successful and offers students advice on achieving goals. Bogdan Sierra Miranda /The Collegian
NE history instructor Andrew Hollinger reflects on what it takes to become successful and offers students advice on achieving goals.
Bogdan Sierra Miranda /The Collegian

NE history instructor Andrew Hollinger believes people who live the way they want will be successful.

“Career provides you status, stuff and security,” he said. “The idea of careers is to find yourself at social economics where you can trade your efforts for enough money to accomplish things … and you live the way you want to.”

Hollinger and several TCC students shared their inspirations and goals for achieving success.

“Jobs are really important,” he said. “You shouldn’t just think about working for somebody, but your success and failure is up to you. If you get a job, your success and failure comes out to the company.”

Although Hollinger tried several jobs in his life, he went back to the beginning.

“All I ever want to do is teach history,” he said. “I constantly follow the dream to make more money … so that I can retire,” he said. “My greatest goal, frankly, is to go back to writing books. I’ve written three.”

He offered advice to TCC students.

“Never settle for mediocrity,” he said. “If you are not the best, find out what it takes to become the best and get there because this world has no rule for OK.”

Therefore, students who want to transfer should figure out what type of program they want and go to the best school, Hollinger said.

“We often are imbalanced for certain periods of time, but we can’t go long term about that,” he said. “In the meantime, without balance, we might get sick and be too stressed, so you have to learn how to deal with your family, work and yourself.”

SE student Shailaun Manning never gave up on a modeling and acting career.

“What keeps me going as a model and actress is realizing there are young women like me being born everyday who will eventually need guidance in their lives,” she said. “I want to help show them what a successful life is.”

Manning has her own description of a model.

“You don’t have to get naked to be a successful model. You don’t have to be super skinny to be a successful model either,” she said. “What is most important is that you are healthy, focused and happy with yourself.”

The first time she thought about modeling was when she and her mother were approached by a modeling school while visiting a mall.

“My mom didn’t really have all of the money to take part in that right away,” she said, “so we didn’t do it.”

However, Manning kept her hopes high until she was 15 and the school offered her a scholarship.

Manning credits Willie Johnson, her former runway coach at Barbizon Modeling School, as an influence on her success today.

“He exposed me to many important people in the local industry. This is how I was signed to my first agency,” she said. “He took me to a fashion show, and she [the agent] was there.”

After graduating from the modeling school in 2006, Manning worked on a national touring runway show for three years. Traveling to over 38 states in the U.S., she was named the tour’s Model of the Year.

“I was like ‘Yeah!’ You know? I’ve made something of myself,” she said.

After the tour, she returned to Arlington to continue working on her career.

“I was just going to every fashion show possible,” she said. “Anytime someone said that they needed a model for anything, even if it didn’t pay, I showed up to be there.”

Manning said her agent has let her be herself and encouraged her to attend acting workshops.

“She showed me the bright side of me, that became what I was best at,” she said. “She pushed me really hard to learn how to present myself on camera.”

TCC graduate and musician Derrick Horne is finishing a double master’s degree at Southern Methodist University.

“One day, I want to go to South Africa to build a music school and teach kids,” he said.

He started working in the music industry when he was a child.

“This field is full of people who set the goals, but these goals are so subjective and hard to reach,” he said. “Academic is different because your goal is based on completion of a certain amount of classes or curriculum. Reaching your goal is simply based on the fact you are willing to work hard and sacrifice.”

Horne’s band director exposed him to the music scene.

“This opened the door for me to do new things and to go places where I never went,” he said.

SE international student Seul Ki Kim from South Korea has a dream of becoming a flight attendant.

“Later in my life, I want to travel the world,” she said.

The dream started when she was 7, flying to Texas.

“They have a really cool job and can travel the world for free,” she said.

She came to the U.S. to learn English when she was 16 years old. But, she said, most international students have problems studying.

“We take more time to understand the material because it’s hard to translate everything in our language into English to graduate from high school and college so that I can have a better degree and to learn exact conversational English in America.”

Kim also wants to learn Chinese because a lot of airlines want flight attendants to speak more than three languages.

“You have to do what you need to do and be honest all the time,” she said. “Don’t be lazy. Just try your best and achieve the goal.”