Dear Malcolm,

My name is Kyle McDonald. I am eighteen years old and loving college so far.
I never could have guessed how great of a fit UNC Charlotte is for me, and the impact
it would have on me.
I was born in Lexington, KY and my family moved to Hickory, NC when I was
two. I have a younger sister whos a sophomore in high school. My dad is an
engineer and my mom is a stay at home mom who gave up being a graphic designer
to raise my sister and I. Hickory is a small town with about 40,000 people living
there, so Charlotte is a needed and enjoyed change for me. I went to public school
until high school when I went to small private Christian school that is very new. My
freshman year there was only thirty-two students in the school and 115 my senior
year. My graduating class was only fourteen students. Being in such a small school
was very different but I had a good experience and made some great friends. I was
voted most likely to make you laugh, but I think thats just because of how small (I
mean lame) my school was. I hope that I can bring some of that humor in to my
writings this semester. My high school is on the campus of Lenoir Rhyne University,
so I got to take dual enrollment classes my Junior and Senior year. That was a huge
advantage for me, and allowed for me to come to UNCC with sixteen credit hours.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my high school experience, but I was definitely ready
to graduate. Im so glad to be meeting a variety of people and getting all of these new
opportunities at UNCC.
Since I was young I have always been highly involved in sports and extra
curricular activities, and I feel like they have played a defining role in my life. I have

played a lot of soccer in my years and I really enjoy it, but I think it is boring to
watch unless its the World Cup (GO USA!). I have not played competitively in years,
but I am involved in intramurals here. My favorite sport is paintball. I started
playing at age twelve and still do as I am a member of the UNCC team. There are two
types of paintball: woodsball and speedball. I grew up playing woodsball, which
involves large-scale games consisting of forts, bunkers, and the woods. Speedball is
a completely different game played at a fast pace in a small arena. The UNCC team
mostly plays speedball and I suck at speedball. As a result it is my goal to get better
and put in the practice to get my speedball skills equal to my woodsball skills. I am
an Eagle Scout and as a result I have done a lot of camping and hiking. My favorite
camping trip to date is when I spent a week in Minnesota near the Great Lakes on a
canoe trip. I also enjoy mountain biking thanks to my dad, because he is constantly
riding bikes. He has showed me a lot of great mountain biking locations close to
home. In high school I was involved in cross-country, track and field, student
council, and the debate team. Although I enjoyed all four of these I have no plans to
further pursue any of these.
My first semester definitely had some surprises to it. For example I joined a
fraternity. I never pictured myself joining a fraternity, because of all of the negative
stereotypes associated with them. For some fraternities the negative stereotypes
are true but for mine they are not. As a result I became a member of Sigma Tau
Gamma. Becoming a brother has not only helped me socially, but it helped me bring
up my grades significantly last semester. I am proud to say that Sigma Tau Gamma is
now amongst the top 3 fraternities for highest average GPA on campus and I want to

help keep it that way. Another big surprise for me this past semester was my major.
I came in to UNCC undeclared but I had known since the 8th grade that I wanted to
major in mechanical engineering. For some reason once I got on campus I just knew
that there was no way I wanted to be an engineer. I am now on a path to major in
finance because I have a deep interest in economics and business management. I
will most likely declare pre-business at the end of this semester and then eventually
finance.
Overall Ive enjoyed my freshman year of college a lot. I enjoy writing
prompts that allow me to be creative or use my imagination, but most of time school
does not allow that to be an option. As a result Im not the biggest fan of writing.
However out of all my classes this semester, this writing class is the only one I look
forward to come back to.

Sincerely,
Excited 49er: Kyle McDonald