“Muskingum, once viewed finally from the inside as a student, managed to exceed my expectations: the Long Magenta Line is a powerful entity, indeed,” says Andrew Body, ’13. Body was very familiar with Muskingum by the time he enrolled as a student; his mom and uncle were both alumni and his dad had been the football team physician for several years.
Although Body enrolled in 2008, he didn’t graduate until 2013 following a year of medical leave. He says, “I was very grateful that the university was patient with me during that year. From President Steele on down, I never felt anything less than unequivocal support.”
Body majored in political science and Spanish. He enjoyed meeting in small classes, sometimes with as few as three students.
Following graduation, Body was hired at a prestigious medical technology firm in Wisconsin. He says, “[I was hired] alongside people who went to Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Yale, etc. And that was an epiphany for me: I had always assumed that I had missed out on something by not attending an east-coast school, but the reality was that Muskingum left me, in most instances, far better prepared than those who had been coddled inside Ivy ‘safe spaces.’”
Following his work in the medical technology field, Body returned to his hometown, Zanesville. He says, “Home is the world's strongest magnet.”
Body credits much of his success to the connections of the Long Magenta Line, Muskingum University’s name for the legacy of alumni from the institution. Body began work at a tutoring firm in Columbus thanks to a Muskie connection; two years later, he is the Vice President of the firm, which “has expanded from 4 to 15 employees in the last 2 years, and one that has wholly cornered the Central Ohio test prep market,” he explains.
He adds, “My Muskingum background has also allowed me to secure a book deal with Barron's Educational Series, and has opened up an opportunity to go on national television where I will showcase my mental math abilities this winter on a Fox primetime show called ‘Super Human.’”
Body will begin his MBA at Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University in the fall; he has received a generous fellowship, which he says he owes “largely to a letter of recognition written by Dr. Beth Butler, [Professor of Spanish].”
Body concludes, “I owe so much (really the bulk of what I have achieved and all that I will ever achieve) to the comprehensive four-year period of liberal arts self-actualization known specifically as ‘A Muskingum University Education.’ I studied political science and Spanish. And yet, Muskingum has given me the tools to prosper in any field I so choose, regardless of major. Next fall, I start not political science or Spanish school, but business school. How dynamic of a degree is that?”