Robby Yoho

March 13, 2020

Robby+Yoho

What school do/did you attend, what do/did you major in, and what year did you graduate NA?

Ohio University, Musical Theatre, graduated NA in 2019,

Do you think NA gave you an accurate idea of what college/real life was going to be like? In what ways?

I’d say so! College work, at least the stuff I have to take, is actually a little easier than NA’s workload. Considering I’m in a performance major, it’s sort of hard to say I do much in the way of academics, outside of English and a little bit of math. As for the performance aspect, NA’s theatre department deserves serious credit.

Do you think there was anything that you wish NA had done a better job of preparing you for?

I think NA could do a better job of inclusion. It’s definitely a geographical thing, I remember a student got called out by the senior citizens for being a person of color portraying Jesus in Spelling Bee, but overall I think there are lots of things that have been utilized recently that could do wonders for the school. I still remember the faces of the kids in my science class sophomore year who joked about the Holocaust every single day, and the kids who were never called out for the hateful words and whatnot that flowed out of their mouths. I think we should just respect each other’s boundaries a bit more.

What was your biggest surprise when you got to college?

The biggest thing that surprised me when I got to college was how much it was this great new place where everybody was everything and nobody cared who you were, just so long as you were a good person. I admit, I knew a lot of fake people at NASH. Admittedly I was pretty fake sometimes. I never want to go back to that now that I’ve come to college.

How well prepared do you think you were compared to your peers?

I mean, some kids definitely lacked that drive when they came in, but now they’re journalism majors or back home looking at other options. It’s a hard field to go into. It looks like it’s all song and dance, but if you don’t work to make that song and dance something worth watching, you’re dead in the water. The work ethic NA gave me, even for the times I refused to use it, is more than some kids get in other places. It’s cool that I ended up there and ended up here. Things just work out really well sometimes.

Do you have any advice for the current students?

I see you’re using that “Be the Kind Kid” motto now. Cool. Love it. But may I make a suggestion? At NA, that doesn’t really work the way you think it might. Yeah, the kind kids get lots of love because they give out lots of love, but I’ve seen some of them get absolutely destroyed because they were “too much” or “too pure.” Just following that motto doesn’t work until college, unfortunately. Kids will be kids. Don’t just be the Kind Kid. Return the favor until the world is filled with Kind Kids. Show love to everyone. I don’t care who they are— gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, whatever. Everyone who is willing to do something to make your day brighter, to lighten your spirits or even just to talk to you, ask how your day is going, or maybe just let you know about something cool that happened to them — they deserve all the respect in the world.

What do you miss most about NA?

I miss all of you, of course! In a lot of ways, I wish I could go back and do some things differently. There were people I hurt, situations I handled completely inappropriately. Some of them still hurt me to this day, just realizing that I could ever go that far off the deep end. But coming back and visiting all of you after months away, now that nobody really cares what happened in high school anymore, that gives me faith that one day I can also forget about my own embarrassing stories. And at the same time, it’s just that I miss my friends. I do.

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