CLASS OF 2000: James Middleton III

Merrily he rolls alongMerrily he rolls along"I don't know what I really want yet. I'll just keep plugging and see what fits." James Middleton III has a plan. "I'm gonna play it by ear," he says confidently, pulling off his well-worn baseball cap, scratching his head, and carefully replacing the hat. James, a business and information systems major in the Engineering School, admits he doesn't really know what his concentration means. "I haven't taken a systems class yet, but I was always good in math and science, so I figured?." Math isn't his first love, however. "Music is something I'd love to go into, but you gotta be realistic. You gotta think about your chances." But James hasn't let reality get in his way. He sings with Chord On Blues (though his first choice was Counterparts), performing at schools around the country with the group. "I'd always done music in high school," he says of his Boxford, Mass., hometown (it's 20 miles north of Boston), a upper-middle-class suburb. "It was always a cool thing. I always wanted to do music." For now, though, his plan is to head home after school to "make a lot of money." "I really don't think about the future much. I'll freak out later, but not now." James -- the youngest male in his family and therefore charged with carrying on the Middleton name -- spent most of his high school years standing in for his father as the "man in the house." James's father, a project manager for AT&T;, commuted back and forth from Bridgeport, Conn., on the weekends. "I had more responsibilities since I was the man of the household. Like I had to get along with my three sisters." That experience served as preparation for James's college life, which he has "loved so far." "I was sold immediately on Penn. Nothing was like the feel I got here," he explains. "The application didn't look too hard? Now, classes are do-able and I'm very happy." But he admits that even his experience as the only African American in his high school graduating class didn't get him ready for some of the separatism he has noticed at Penn. "I didn't even know about the BIG-C," he says, attributing it to the fact that he doesn't live in the W.E.B. DuBois College House. "I wanted to try out for The Inspiration [a cappella group], but I never saw a flyer here. I've never seen an example of DuBois doing anything wrong, but it seems to separate itself." James says he never considered living in DuBois, choosing instead between English House and the Quad. "I get distracted very easily," he says. "I thought if I lived in the Quad, I'd be up all night and wouldn't get any work done. I don't get any sleep anyway." For good reason. James's extracurricular commitments keep him busy, with a work-study job in the dining hall of his English House dorm and as a pledge in the Delta Upsilon ("Yooo-psilon", he pronounces deliberately) fraternity. "When I got here, I was so, like, why would you wanna pledge a fraternity?" he remembers. "But I had a friend in the house, so I went to a DU party and sat down and talked with my friends and that kind of thing. "You don't just get drunk and hook up with some random girl. Everybody says it's someone that doesn't have friends so they have to go out and join a frat. It's not like I was empty without it." For James, the fraternity experience has been one more way to help begin to define his interests and eventual goals. "I don't know what I really want yet. I figure I'll just keep plugging and see what fits. My theory is, if it fits, go with it." n

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