Donna Stia

Student

“I want to do big things: urban landscapes, parks. Places where you really reach people through something beautiful.”

She’d just finished an essay for her application to USC. It was time for Donna Stia to move on, but she was feeling a little wistful about it. “I’ve really loved it here at SMC and I don’t want to leave, but I’m done,” she said. “I’ve been accepted by UC Berkeley, but I can’t move there with two kids. It looks like USC is the next destination. So here I am, working on a Friday night. But it’s okay because I want to have a great career, doing something wonderful that I’m passionate about.” For Donna, that passion has always meant creating landscapes.

“When I was little, my grandmother and I would go for long walks through the woods, learning about plants,” she recalls. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I don’t think there’s a person alive who isn’t affected by nature’s beauty. Even a naturalistic golf course can be moving.” Battalions of bulldozers and botanists are her future, but Donna stresses that the future is only being actualized with the help she’s had at SMC.

“I’m a single mom who works and studies full time and the SEEK program for older adults has been incredible for me,” she says. “Lisa Battaglia, the director, has been an angel sent from heaven. She is so in tune with every student, and she really listens when you talk. But all of the teachers involved with SEEK have been great – maybe because they have the stimulus of being involved with all us older students who have so much happening in their lives. I absolutely recommend the program to all people making this kind of transition,” says Donna. “But SMC people are like that in general: You just let them know where you want to go and they say, ‘Okay. This is how we’re going to get you there.’ It’s just amazing.”

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