Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

I am a nearly 25-years-old undergraduate student. I have been aware of my status as a non-traditional student at Duquesne since I enrolled, but it hasn’t hit me until the start of this semester. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the freshman class making me feel old. Maybe it’s because I have an easier time referring to professors and administrators by their first names. Maybe it’s because the graduating class of 2025 was younger than me.

In all fairness, 24 isn’t that old. I’ve met non-traditional students far older than I am and I have a lot of respect for them. It takes a lot of guts and brains to realize that it’s never too late to learn something new or change your career, and the older you get the more guts and brains it takes.

I used to work for Footer’s Dry Cleaners – the main location on Forbes Avenue. The company had been around since 1870 under various owners and I got to work there as a clerk soon before it finally closed for good.

I got the job my junior year of high school, which was great for my schedule. I went to Taylor Allderice, which let out around 2:45 p.m. I’d walk 15 minutes up Shady Avenue, turn left onto Forbes and start my work day.

My shifts started at 3 p.m. and ended around 7 p.m. I lived in the neighborhood, a block away from school, so my walk home was just as short as the walk to work. I didn’t need to learn how to drive or ask for a ride. I was able to live independently from my parents from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. And I had my own money to spend on whatever I could afford.

I didn’t go directly to college after graduating high school in 2019. I suppose I technically had a couple weeks at the Community College of Allegheny County, but that doesn’t really count seeing I dropped out just a few weeks in. Not because I couldn’t handle the academics, but because I just couldn’t justify the commute.

I’d wake up every morning at around 6 a.m. My commute included a roughly 35 minute ride on the bus to Steel Plaza Station followed by a 15 minute ride on the “T” to Allegheny Station. When I was done with classes, I’d do the same thing in reverse back to Footer’s for another 3 to 7 p.m. shift. None of that, I thought, was worth an associate’s degree in business administration.

So, instead I started picking up more hours at the cleaners. My formal duties consisted of helping customers, tagging clothes into the system, sorting and bagging orders and billing. My informal duties were more interesting.

In my down time, I started to learn how to use the sewing machines at work. I asked our tailor how to stitch buttons back onto clothes and I learned how to identify quality threads. He disappeared before I could get much further than that. His departure left us with a large back stop of repairs, some of which were simple enough for me to do. The rest were handled by our new tailor a few weeks later.

We also lost the other clerks shortly after I dropped out. Some went off to college, some retired and some quit. Eventually, the store’s staff consisted of my manager and I. We started outsourcing our dry cleaning to our sister location, Lord Duncan Dry Cleaners, on Forward Avenue near the intersection with Shady. My manager was already driving clothes between the Shadyside location and our store. The change meant he had to add another stop to his route, leaving me alone in the store most of the time.

I resented nearly every aspect of the dry cleaner, as I neared the end of my time there. I hated working long hours, I hated being alone most of the time and I hated many of the customers who just couldn’t accept that their stains were permanent and that I wasn’t the one who put them there.

I had enough of it. I moved on to another dry cleaner and found myself no happier there, so, inspired by my knowledge of the different dry cleaning chemicals, I applied to Duquesne as an environmental science major in the fall of 2021 as a way of “sticking it to the man,” I guess.

I realized early on in my first semester that I hated environmental science for a different reason. I took stock of what I was good at: writing and graphic design. I’ve been goofing around with photoshop since middle school and designed a number of personal websites. I had also been listening to National Public Radio at work and kind of wanted to do that. So, I figured, it was either digital media arts or journalism for me.

I went with journalism. I joined the Duquesne Student Radio. I started writing for The Duke. I’ve had a couple of internships (one with Pittsburgh’s NPR affiliate). I think I’m doing pretty well for a not-so-old old man.

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu