An Extra-Ordinary Life: Alyssa Feitzinger

Twenty one year old aspiring journalist Alyssa Feitzinger, sat in front of me on this chilly march evening, wearing her ripped denim jacket decorated with pins. She certainly is a girl with an artistic flair coming from a small, predominantly Amish town in Pennsylvania who is taking on the city life to find herself and her passion for writing. Her ashy pink hair was pulled back in a black bow, and her soft voice was calmingly confident as we got to chatting about her life and what makes her, her. I was filled with curiosity after unveiling that the girl I thought might be shy, is actually much more than that.


Templeton: What word or phrase best describes your personality and why?


Alyssa Feitzinger: “Old soul definitely, my grandmother and I are both Gemini’s and she always said she was the more youthful Gemini while I was the one with an older soul. I think of us as kindred spirits.”



Templeton: What is your favorite book?


AF: “The 6th harry potter- the half-blood prince”



T: When did you decide that journalism was the right path for you?


AF: “When I was a little kid I used to draw clothing designs and use a wooden plank as a frame and create paper silhouettes for my designs, I thought at the time I wanted to do fashion but as I entered into high school I thought a more realistic route would be journalism because I knew I had a love for writing and fashion, why not become a fashion reporter.”


T: Do you have siblings?


AF: Yes I have an older half-brother, and a younger brother.


T: What is your fondest childhood memory?


AF: “Growing up my grandmother was really my best friend- I want to say that she really raised me but that’s not giving enough credit to my mother, who was a single mother. My grandmother was in charge of everything in our area, she was the girl scouts leader, the summer camps coordinator, and she did everything. She was really in charge of everything in the summer camps so I felt like being her granddaughter that meant I had a sense of being in charge too, I would kind of take the groups of kids and go on adventures, and I always loved spending time with my grandma at the camp and the older counselors, I connected more with them.”




My conversation with Alyssa enlightened me, it sounds cliché to say don’t judge a book by its cover but it’s really the truth. A shy, artsy girl, in my eyes, only to reveal a quick-witted, sarcastic, yet calming force. Perhaps there is even a hidden friendship here, we never know.

An Extra-Ordinary Life: Katherine Crilly

Even though she was never that interested in school, Katherine Crilly, 23, has always had a passion for writing, though she didn’t always want to be a journalist. From a conservative suburb in Bucks County, Crilly had ambitions to traveling the world and become a “big deal”, but when her front teeth were shattered in a traumatic accident before college, so were her dreams of becoming an actor. I sat down with Crilly to talk about how she got to where she is now, and where she hopes to go next.

Templeton: Why did you decide to major in journalism?

Katherine Crilly: I’ve always loved writing. I went to a Catholic high school. I wasn’t a very good student and my teachers would tell me I would never amount to anything so I decided to really focus on writing. I always thought I was supposed to be a big deal, like an actor or a model. I had an accident when I was 18 that knocked both my front teeth out so I had to change my plans.

T: How exactly did your accident affect your plans?

KC: I had reconstructive surgery and implants done for 3 years. Surgery was really a reflection of the way my life was going and I lost someone close to me during the biggest procedure of my surgeries. It really put life into perspective.

T: How was the transition from your hometown to the city?

KC: I went to two other schools before Temple, but I wasn’t really feeling the close knit, small school vibe. If there isn’t a lot going on, I start to lose my marbles. Philly is very different from the conservative suburbs where I grew up and, even though I grew up conservative, I responded more to diversity. It’s been a good life lesson to see how different people’s lives can be, traveling and experiencing different things.

T: Do you plan to travel rather than settle down after college?

KC: Part of me strives for the nice house and marriage. When I was younger I thought I wanted to move to New York City and be an actor and live this extraordinary life. I want to experience nice things but I’m a homebody at heart.

An Extra-Ordinary Life: Grace Shallow

When Grace Shallow was younger, she walked around her hometown of Cinnaminson, New Jersey with a pile of books at all times. Her passion for reading soon became a talent of writing as she wrote stories in notebooks and read how-to-write books by her favorite authors, of which her dad would buy for her. She watched Sex in the City because of Carrie Bradshaw, a character in the show who wrote about her opinions in a newspaper column.


“You could be like Carries Bradshaw,” her dad told her one night, during a playful argument. “You have too many opinions. You should write about them and get it out.”



Now a 20-year-old journalism student at Temple University, Shallow is doing exactly that. She is dedicated to reporting on addiction and recovery in Philadelphia and hopes her work as a solutions journalist will one day change the lives of those battling addiction.




Templeton: Why journalism?


Grace Shallow: I always wrote stories when I was a kid, in notebooks. I always had books with me––I was like a hoarder––I would carry like four books with me at a time, in the car, wherever went. My dad always encouraged me to write. Whenever I would pick a favorite author, he would buy a book by them on how to teach kids how to write and give it to me. He always encouraged me to write. Then one day, I was watching Sex in The City with Carrie Bradshaw, and he was like, 'You could be like Carrie Bradshaw,' how is a columnist who writes about her opinions. I think we were arguing about something, and he said, 'You have too many opinions. You should write about them and get it out,' and I said fine, I will do that. Then I decided on journalism. That's literally why I am a journalist, it just worked out since then.



T: What are your plans for after graduation, if you could do anything?
GS: I would live in and work in Kensington as an investigative reporter and imbed myself in the community and be on the streets every single day, interacting with people. And, in real life, I would really like to go to Colorado and do a fellowship there. Like, get away from Philadelphia for a little bit and do reporting somewhere else would be cool because I have lived ten minutes away my whole life and I've done a lot of work in Philadelphia so far so it would be interesting to learn more about another community because I like community journalism.


T: Why Kensington?

GS: Well, I would like to be a reporter on addiction and recovery––those are two things that I am highly interested in and Kensington is the epicenter of it.


T: If there was an issue that you could solve through journalism, what would it be?

GS: Oh, one hundred percent, addiction. I think it just affects everybody and I know so many people that are affected by it. So, if I could take away some of those things that people are going through, that would be amazing, but I think that solutions journalism has a role in making treatment and recovery easier to access. That's the closest thing, I think, besides literally being a recovery specialist, which is something that I would do later in life, but not now.


T: How do you think these sort of issues can be addressed, or even solved?

GS: Funding; the stigma being eradicated, holistic care. Addressing the fact that everyone is going to use drugs at some point in their life, so teaching kids how to use them in a smart way; and better understanding of what addiction is and what causes it.

An Extra-Ordinary Life: Patrick Bilow

As a journalism major at Temple University, Patrick Bilow is rooted in Philadelphia. But it’s only temporary.

At 20 years old, Bilow has moved from state to state. He was originally born in Beverly Hills and lived in California for a few years before moving to other places like Ohio, New Hampshire and Malone, New York — a scenic town of about 14,500 people in upstate New York where he attended high school.


Though he’s made an impact in Philadelphia as a frequent contributor to The Temple News and as an intern at the Philadelphia Citizen, Bilow hopes to find new places to explore.


Templeton: What was the worst thing about your hometown?

Patrick Bilow: When I lived in my hometown, like high school, I was fairly miserable. That was a little bit of like, high school, but also I think it was Malone, too. … With a small town comes people that aren’t very open-minded. I mean, a lot of people have lived in my town for generations and never really set foot outside of my town ever. ... There’s a lot of like bigotry and just genuinely being not interested in anything beyond like what was conventional and I don’t know, I mean, I never really felt like that. My parents grew up there, but they lived in LA and New York and they’ve moved all over the country. So they always kind of taught me like there’s a bigger world.

T: Your hometown is about a seven-hour drive from Philadelphia. What do you miss about it the most in daily life at Temple?

PB: Right now, honestly, we’re getting hit with snow and I really really miss the snow upstate, like skiing. I think mostly just being like outside is a big one. ... I do miss that a lot because I feel like when you live in a city, like there’s no real quiet reflection time ever, like there’s just a lot going on constantly. … I definitely don’t love where I’m from but when you look at the positive, it’s definitely a place for people to think and clear their mind.

T: Coming from a small, scenic town, what was your first impression of Philadelphia?

PB: It was big and it was exciting but it wasn’t overwhelming. … We were staying in Center City the first time I visited Temple right next to City Hall and my dad and I got up one morning. We went to get a coffee...and there was a guy, a barista, that was actually a Temple grad, and so I was telling him I was going to visit Temple and we had like a 20-minute conversation. It turns out he was like from the town that I was born in Pasadena in LA so we just chatted for a while that day. I feel like I always run into Temple grads all the time so it’s just like it’s a city and it’s big and it’s exciting, it’s also like a community.

T: Why did you want to study journalism at Temple?

PB: I wrote a lot when I was younger. … I would read a lot and my parents really, I had no idea what journalism was until my dad and my mom kind of said, you should look into it. You should, you like to write, you want to travel. My junior year of high school is kind of when I started thinking about journalism. … Esquire was actually one of the first magazines I read, oddly enough. … [I also read] Adirondack Life, which was kind of this weird, kitchy, like very niche magazine that would circulate in the Adirondack Park in the towns that I lived in.

T: You’ve moved around a lot and seen a lot of the country. If you could go anywhere, where would you travel?

PB: I want to go overseas really, really badly. I just haven’t like found the time to do it yet...and it’s also really expensive, but I would love to go to Ireland and spend a lot of time there. Paris, I really want to go to Paris and London. I’m kind of obsessed with like the fashion industry over there so I’d like to spend some time in Italy and Milan.

An Extra Ordinary Life: Carly Ridge

Sitting outside on the deck, leaned back, coffee on the table, the surrounding smell of fresh vegetables and fruit in the air; this is how Carly Ridge likes to spend her mornings at home.

Carly Ridge, a 20 year old junior journalism major at Temple University has a hobby that not many city college kids are familiar with; gardening.  During the summers, Ridge helps garden at her parent’s house. Ridge took up the act thanks to her mother.

“I didn’t always like it,” Ridge said. “At first, my mom made me do the weeding. Now she’s gotten too busy. I like it now; it’s relaxing unless something goes wrong.”

Growing an assortment of veggies and fruits, Ridge’s garden includes blueberries, lettuce, spinach and tomatoes. Since her family doesn’t have a large yard, they’ve gotten creative through the use of planters on the deck. Her mom isn’t the only parent who has influenced Ridge in what she does. Her father and his side of the family were all journalists.

Ridge’s father worked as a press secretary for Senator Dennis Ceconcini based off in Arizona. Also, many people in her family worked as freelancers. “My great uncle, covered parts of the war in Afghanistan. Crazy, he was, like, 70 years old when he did,” Ridge said.

Ridge hopes to follow in her family’s footsteps, becoming a successful journalist as well. She plans on taking a different, personalized path, and possibly owning her own garden along the way.