Megan Finnerty (LA’02) knew well before she came to West Lafayette that she wanted to be a journalist. But the classes for her mass communication and media studies major weren’t like those of a traditional “J-school” — and that’s precisely why she says she’s found success. “The whole communications approach was theory based, not occupation […]
Michele Bisceglie (LA’96) arrived at Purdue the Saturday before classes. It was her first time on campus — and in Indiana. The South Jersey native jokes she got kicked out of her home state because of her love of country music, but the real story is more straightforward. “My guidance counselor suggested Purdue,” Bisceglie […]
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ginger Thompson found her footing at the Purdue Exponent Ginger Thompson (LA’86) is a senior reporter at ProPublica, a powerhouse in investigative journalism. She came to Purdue to study computer technology. Coming from a “working-class to poor family,” she wanted a sure thing, a career with stability. But Thompson found that Purdue […]
David Robert Lewis (CE’1894), from Greensburg, Indiana, is noted in Purdue’s historical accounts as the University’s first black graduate. He was one of only nine black students who graduated from Indiana colleges between the Civil War and the year 1900. Lewis’s senior thesis, “Highway Road Construction,” included a review of European road building practices. As a […]
I wish we had a staff picture. If we did — the Purdue Exponent, 1984–85 — I could draw arrows from those faces of 30 years past, the faces of students putting out a newspaper at a university known for engineers and astronauts, a university that didn’t even offer a journalism degree. The arrows would […]
