In East Helena, every UFC pay-per-view fight-night is paired with Bud Light and nachos. Many members of the 2006 Helena High School Bengal football’s offense are still close and the Friday night event offers a respite from their jobs: the postal service, satellite installation and construction.

I began at MSU with almost all of them and watched many drop out after their freshman year. I’ve been invited a few times to the fight-night, but years apart never strengthen friendships--I have been increasingly absent in their lives, and they in mine.

Like my friends, I had little direction when I entered MSU. I didn’t and couldn’t consider other schools, and came here with foresight limited to the next Friday night.

The alternative option to continuing education--working in construction, or making a similar routine a career--hasn’t been nearly as influential in as the relationships that I’ve generated at MSU. What’s kept me at here are relationships, particularly with faculty, staff and members of the Bozeman community. In my mind, those relationships represent the keystone of retention. Relationships with my peers are instrumental, though a less influential factor in retention.

Working with local non-profits, student-groups or with faculty members, I’ve developed relationships based on mutuality, where a group comes together not for purely social ends, but for more significant ones. Working to create a more environmentally conscious campus and to encourage opportunities for Bozeman youth to enact their ideas, I’ve connected in ways that have kept me anchored here.

Unlike my friends, I was lucky to engage.