Ana Montjoy, an alumna of the Winthrop graduating class of 2014, spent her time at Winthrop as a nontraditional student and created friendships with numerous international students.
“My college experience was a bit unique. I was a few years older than everyone else and quit a full-time job at a department store to move two and half hours from the world I knew and go back to school when I was nearly 24 years old,” Montjoy said. “Most of my classmates were 19 which is a super-awkward age gap.”
Although Montjoy said it took her a semester to find her place on campus, she spent a lot of time with the international students that were attending the university.
“My favorite memories of Winthrop are the international students,” Montjoy said. “I came from a small town about 45 minutes from Charleston where I didn’t really know too terribly much about other parts of the world.”
During her second semester at Winthrop, Montjoy lived with an exchange student from Australia and later befriended several French students that came from ISCOM in Montpellier. She later lived with a Slovenian exchange student.
“I loved living with and learning from all these different cultures,” Montjoy said. “For a girl who had never so much as been near an airplane, these people gave me a taste of culture I would have never known I was missing. I am a better human for having learned from people all over the world.”
Montjoy is still friends and in contact with several of her college roommates who were international students.
“At one point, I could say ‘good night’ in English, Spanish, French, Slovene, and Greek all because of fun roommates who would teach me stuff,” Montjoy said, “It was so much fun getting to know international students. They were literally the best part of my Winthrop experience.”
While living on campus, Montjoy remembers the rumors of the ghosts who haunted Margaret Nance and the fear people had of going into the basement of Tillman Hall.
“A girl who lived in Margaret Nance once told me her printer randomly started printing at three in the morning,” Montjoy said. “I never personally experienced anything though.”
When she was not hanging out with her friends and roommates, Montjoy was working toward her degree as an integrated marketing communications major. While in the program, Montjoy states that professors Marilyn Sarow and Bonnye Stuart were a memorable part of her experience.
“Dr. Sarow was over the IMC program when I was at Winthrop,” Montjoy said. “She was a bit intimidating at times, but she was an excellent professor. I was definitely not a memorable student, but she was the most memorable educator I ever had.”
During Montjoy’s time at Winthrop, Stuart was her professor in the mass communications department and her academic advisor.
“She set a tone of student accountability and responsibility for my own classes and education that no one had ever set before,” Montjoy said. “The way Winthrop made my life and my education my responsibility is something a lot of students today could learn to do.”
While at Winthrop, she majored in Integrated Marketing Communications and minored in history. And, the alumna received her MBA from the University of South Carolina Aiken in 2021.
Currently works at the College of Charleston as the Program Coordinator for Outside Aid and Alternative Loans.
“I work in student financial aid, and I have a specific alpha-split of students that I primarily work with for most financial aid-related tasks, but my specialty is dealing with alternative loans and outside scholarships,” Montjoy said. “I primarily certify alternative loans and place outside scholarships on the system. Both of these are manual processes where I have to ensure each student stays within their specific budget, as set by federal guidelines.”
As an alumna, Montjoy reads the alumni emails and Winthrop magazine along with attending going to a homecoming game and participating in a virtual Winthrop trivia night during Covid.
“My time at Winthrop completely changed my life,” Montjoy said. “I am who I am today because of Winthrop. It took a few years after graduation to add up, but when it did, I found myself so fortunate to have gone through the program that I did, when I did, and to have made the friends I made.”
