Arizona State University - Sun Devil Spark / Sahuaro Yearbook (Tempe, AZ)

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Indicating to march next, O ' Neil explains a new march formation to 20-year-old clarinetist Patti Kimm and 18- old clarinetist Pogue. (Left) the band O ' Neil keeps them on beat. Being in a group deal with a lot of and The freinds get out of it makes it Photos by Craig Valenzuela he first thing you notice about Brigid O ' Neil is her smile. However, at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday, you might think she would be less than happy about spending the rest of the evening in the band room at Gammage. She seemed to thrive on the sounds of student musicians practicing in the halls and the neverending rush of people working and socializing in the band office. O ' Neil, a 21-year-old wildlife conservation major, had been one of the drum majors of the Arizona State University SunDevil Marching Band for the past three years and also a member of Kappa Kappa Psi, the national honorary band fraternity. She knew first hand how difficult it could be for a student to find their own place at ASU. I would advise a freshman to find something that they like and that they know they want to do and find a way to get involved with it, she said. There are so many places through the Student Services Building that you could just go in and they ' d tell you what to do. Sure, you ' re scared and you don ' t want to meet anybody, but once you start going, it ' ll get better. One way that many students believed gave them their own place was having a support system of good friends. O ' Neil said that her friends were an integral part of her decision to change her major. She had been a music education major for her first two years at ASU, and had a very difficult time trying to decide if she Continued on page 3c Text by Marlene E. Naubert

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INTRODUCTION

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FINDING They didn ' t understand how difficult it was. They THE saw in me what I wanted. I don ' t know what I want to do. SUPPORT They realized that music was imp rtant tai me and I - BRIGID O ' NEIL but it wasn ' t what I really wanted to do. Continued from page 3b really wanted to dedicate her life to being a band director. (The music) was me, she said. I equated myself with how good I was. Everyone I looked up to was a band director or a conductor. I thought that once all of that was taken away from me, what would I be? I wouldn ' t be as important or as qualified, and people wouldn ' t think much of me in the music world. I wasn ' t thinking of what I thought of me, but what other people thought. O ' Neil said that her friends were the ones who made her realize what she wanted to do with her life, and her when she made the decision to change her major to wildlife conservation biology. They didn ' t understand how it was, she said. They saw in me what I wanted. They realized that music was important to me and I loved it, but it wasn ' t what I really wanted to do. They were just like, ' Do it ' , and sometimes that irritated me, because I was ' Well, I don ' t know what I want to do ' , and I really did. Since she has been in college, O ' Neil said she learned a very important thing about finding her own place where she would be happy. She found that was not so much a destination as it was a constant journey filled with new experiences. We ' ll go to college, we ' ll graduate, we ' ll get a job, we ' ll do all these things and it will equal happiness at the end of our lives. We ' ll say, `Great! I ' ve led a happy life ' , and I kind of had that philosophy, she said. If I make this band, then I ' ll be happy. If I do well on this test or this audition, then I ' ll be happy. If I have these friends, then I ' ll be happy. That ' s definitely not the Happiness isn ' t something you have to find.