All business but all smiles, senior Katie Welch bounces right up each step of Graham Memorial Hall.
"Sorry I'm late," she says, sliding from the sun into the shade, her soft blue eyes and slender dimples serving to disarm as she approaches. Promptness isn't her strong suit, but this isn't for a lack of sticking to scheduling; it's quite the opposite.
Being early equates to waiting around. And those are valuable minutes Welch could manipulate into soaking in what she will soon be without: Chapel Hill, time with her twin brother, moments with friends and the connection with UNC campus life.
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Secluded and shaded, Welch evaluates the years gone by, her black cotton dress keeping her cool and comfortable.
"My best decision academically was, by far, coming to Carolina," she says without doubt.
Four years ago, Welch's list of academic adventures to accomplish bordered on a wish list -- desires soon to be dampened realities of college.
As of March 2001, she placed her priorities as follows: political interning in Washington, D.C.; going Greek with the greatest of ease; heading to Australia for academics abroad; beginning life in the Kenan-Flagler Business School; keeping her courses fulfilling rather than obligatory and -- oh, yeah -- generally not freaking out.
With unwavering optimism and dedication, Welch was able to whisk her way through college life, checking off the wishes she set out to tackle and remembering all along not to worry too much about life.
Welch knocked down desires like bowling pins in an early frame in the game of life, picking up one exciting experience after another.
Dabbling in D.C. politics was over and done with by the end of her first college summer. Next up was moving into the Kappa Delta house. "I'm sure there's not a 100-percent-perfect place to live," Welch offered in 2001. But she was confident then."You really can't go wrong."
She makes a strikingly similar statement three years later; it's a parallel that shows positivity always wins out for Welch.
"It's living with 40 girls," she says about the house. "In all fairness, they're 40 of your best friends. Never a dull moment."
Next up was Australia for academia down under. Welch was not destined to leave UNC without traveling outside the United States for a slightly different kind of education.
So she traveled abroad, returning richer and satisfied. "It was awesome. I loved it," she says. "It was really a refreshing experience. The culture is real laid back."
Her trip abroad was the first extended period of time Welch remembers being away from her twin brother, Kent, since birth. Both enrolled at UNC, but never fretted about being so close to one another.
"We always knew we were going to the same school," she says. "It was never an issue. And it hasn't been an issue."
Year three called for an acclimation into the business school and an inevitable distancing from the life on main campus, which Welch had not only become accustomed to but came to call her own.
But if her best academic decision was enrolling at UNC, a close first runner-up, she says, was her settling down with business as a major.
"It's one of those things that people either love or hate," she says. "Fortunately, I've loved it. I've enjoyed the material so much."
But Welch says no matter how engaging the educational experience, she was hesitant about leaving the buzz of central campus life. So Welch infused each semester with a class or two that drew her near the Pit and Polk Place. "I really do enjoy campus life and I didn't want to sacrifice that," she says.
Such was life for Welch: turning academic wishes into willed actualities. Now, she can collect herself in the comfortable fact that come October she will be headed to Columbus, Ohio, to work for the accounting firm KPMG in the international services division. Welch calls this job "the shot in the dark I was crossing my fingers for."
And -- oh, yeah -- this high-strung senior didn't ball up with stress and spontaneously combust under the pressures of the day-to-day. She steadied herself.
"I've learned that staying balanced is definitely, as it was and still is, a challenge for me," she says. But after four years, she's remained on top of the competition against chaos. What's her secret? "My planner," she admits. "I don't leave home with out it."
What was truly enriching for Welch and also centered her equilibrium was the constant, candid contact she kept with those she was close with, whether it fit her schedule or not.
"I will take an hour and talk to a friend about our weeks before I sit down and write a paper," Welch says. "It's more important for me to be a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter."
The next frame in the game of life is being set up for Welch. She will miss North Carolina, UNC academics, campus life, sorority life and being near her family, especially Kent. "I can't say I'm ready to leave him," she says. "I'll miss him a lot. I really will."
Then there's the Ohio weather.
"I hate cold weather," she admits. "I just have to have a good attitude and prepare myself, mentally. But I'm definitely excited. It's a great opportunity."
It was all classic Katie Welch: setting 'em up to knock 'em down. She says, "This is going to make me a better person."
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