For Mount Pleasant townies, a college life is the same setting as high school

Going to college is a basic three-point acclimation to a new lifestyle: Move away from home, meet new friends and work toward a degree.

Unless you’re a ‘townie.’

For some self-described Mount Pleasant ‘townies,’ the only part of college life that differs from high school is working toward a degree.

Alexia Torres, a 2010 CMU graduate and eighth grade teacher at West Intermediate Middle School, said college was about commuting to the classroom from her childhood home.

She said that she has, however, come across people who have called her a ‘townie’ in a condescending tone. But for Torres, who teaches the same class she once took in the same school as a young student, staying home after high school and attending CMU was about more than studying for exams in her childhood bedroom.

“I’m really close with my family,” she said.

Stephanie Jackson, a fifth-year senior at CMU, is also a self-described ‘townie.’ She said she tells people because the term clears any confusion people have as to where she’s from.

“People automatically assume I’m from out-of-town because I go to college here, instead of also being from here,” Jackson said.

The acclimation of college life does not translate with all townies.

Andrew Smith, a Mount Pleasant resident, is not very particular about the CMU students moving back each fall. During the summer, he said, the traffic is light and easy to deal with and the parties are quiet, if there are any at all.

“The silence of summer is over,” he said. “But, I make more money at my job.”

Smith said he works for Sound Productions & CrazyTrain party buses based in Clare. The more students in town, he said, the better it is for the local economy. He used last weekend as an example when Michigan State played CMU in football, which brought about 50,000 people to town.

“If they could have State play here every year, that would be the best thing ever for this area,” Smith said.