Aidan Selway has worked to balance his many interests through his journey at Waynesburg University. 

“When I came here, I didn’t really expect to be in the Education Department,” Selway said. “I was going into it like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to go for engineering. That sounds kind of cool. I might do civil engineering, you know?’ But then I saw chemistry on my schedule. I’m like, ‘I would say pass.’ And then I switched straight to education.”

At his mother’s encouragement, he chose to major in elementary/middle-level education (math), but was not initially convinced it was a good idea.

 “I was like, ‘this is going to be horrible, isn’t it? This is going to be the worst thing imaginable.’ But going in, I got to meet the students. We got to have a blast. I’m like, ‘this is fun. This is probably not going to be like this after next semester.’ And then I ended up being there another semester and I ended up sticking with it for the rest of my time.”

Selway’s academic advisor and professor of mathematics, James Bush, said, “The thing I love about Aidan is that he is a total active learner. He is always engaged, he asks a lot of questions, which is great. Nobody else out there is paying attention; I know Aidan is, and I think that is one of his best and definitely most endearing qualities. He is not only conscientious, but considerate. Things always came in on time. He is like any good math person, needs to be a perfectionist. If he doesn’t understand something, he wants to know, and it’s good.”

Selway enjoyed his math classes despite their difficulty, especially when they were with Bush. “Having Doc, he was so on his assignments. It was great, he was a great teacher,” Selway said. 

Selway described the collaborative process that he had with his fellow students as they worked through the upper-level math classes. 

“We would always text in a group chat, say, ‘Hey, what was that assignment like? What do we do? How do we solve this?’ And some of us would be like, ‘all right, here’s the answer,’ or ‘we have no idea. I’m going to ask Doctor Bush later today and figure it out from here.’”

As he moved through his time at the University, Selway spoke about feeling called to teach. He described an experience where he was able to explain a study method to a nursing major friend and watch that friend succeed after they implemented it.

 “I felt happy knowing that I was able to teach someone something that I just knew from experience. It’s always good to hear that something that you explain or maybe something that worked for you that you want to teach to other people working for them as well.”

Throughout his major, Selway taught at five separate schools, including Carmichaels, Waynesburg Central and Trinity High School, his alma mater. While he taught primarily in high schools, he also taught the third grade. He said he enjoys teaching older students because, “I want to talk to kids about life. What’s going on with their lives? How are they doing? What do you plan on going on in the future? What’s your plan? That sort of thing. Because that’s what my Physics 2 teacher did before he quit teaching. He gave us a map of what you’d like to do in the next five years and how you were going to do it. And maybe that inspired me to do that too.”

After graduation, Selway hopes to continue teaching in the region, whether at Trinity High, Canon Mac or in the Pittsburgh school districts.

 “I also want to go for my masters, eventually my PhD and I eventually want to teach college,” he said. “I don’t even know where I want to go for that.  There’s so many decisions I haven’t made yet, but I got to think of something soon.”

When he is not teaching, Selway enjoys drawing, being with friends, collecting models and watching movies. He particularly enjoys watching the Godzilla films, saying, “It taught me to be creative and how to create weird things. It’s okay, just make things that aren’t conventionally like, ‘Hey, this is beautiful or ugly.’ It’s something that’s just different, unique, something that you’ve never seen before. It inspired me to draw a lot.”

According to Selway, he initially wanted to use his love of drawing to pursue a career in animation but shifted after discovering the poor conditions industry professionals face. Soon after, he began to pursue civil engineering, where he could still use his drawing skills, but he decided against it due to the necessary physics coursework. 

Selway credits his parents, but especially his mother, as significant influences in his life, creatively and academically.

 “I think I have that brightness, that friendliness that my mom had, and I’m grateful for that,” he said. “But I’m also glad that my dad was my dad, taught me more of like how to be, how to live like, you know, here’s like financials, here’s how that works or like, hey, here’s how to pick something on your car. He taught me things that were more like I’m going to need in the future, that sort of thing, but also how to be analytical, how to make decisions, and stuff like that. And I’m grateful for both of them. And then my stepdad, he definitely was more like talking me into engineering,” Selway said.

When speaking about the lessons he learned at the University, Selway said, “College is a place where your education is very important. But always make sure that you don’t let that education or anything else disrupt you from making friends, being friendly with people, finding love or just making really great relationships with people around you. Don’t waste that opportunity. There’s always someone you can talk to, and there’s always someone new you can meet.”