Kati Rutkowski

Small town girl

“I want to explore things that I would never allow myself to explore.”

“I grew up in a really small town of about 1,000 people so coming to Richmond was a major culture shock. We have one stoplight in Urbanna. We just got that when I was 15 so it was a huge thing. Everyone went and watched it.

“When I first toured campus, VCU seemed like it was the real world. It was in the middle of everything – we walked from one VCU office to a restaurant. And I was like, that is the life I want to be completely in. I want to go from the city to school to the city to school. I don't want to be in, I don't know, just a high school that’s upgraded.

“It seemed like at some schools I visited, what I could do was go to another person’s dorm room and that was it. But it seemed like in Richmond there’s so much more being offered.”

Finding your place

“VCU tries to get you to find your place here. When I visited, my ambassador was trying to find out what I was interested in and then she provided so many different options of things where I could go with it, people I could talk to. So that impressed me and it impressed my mom.

“The tour was helpful. It had a lot of historical information about Richmond so that was just interesting about how VCU has bought buildings and renovated them. I really think you should tour a school before you go there. Even if you only do one or two tours, you're going to be so much more familiar with the school.”

‘I enjoy this’

“I remember having conversations with my family about the practical side of majoring in business and why I wanted to study history. I realized that it’s not the end of the world if you don't have a direct way when you graduate. I guess that gave me the strength to be like, you know what? I enjoy this. Why not test it out? That’s the big part of college. I want to try this major now and I want to go with it. I'm not being reckless, but I want to explore things that I would never allow myself to explore.”

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