Brian T., CU Succeed Student, Fall 2019

The first half of senior year has taught me to be an adult and reminded me to be a child. While maintaining my creative and jubilant personality from my childhood, I ventured into my academic courses and extracurricular activities with the mindset that everything has a purpose in the long run. With the exception of one digital text-focused class, I learned to enjoy the rigor of various assignments and in-depth discussions from all of my courses. Not only did this political science and my French class, for instance, inspire me to question the accepted understandings of social beliefs – the choice of occupations, “wrong” interpretations of a situation, and behind the scenes of peoples’ lifestyles – but my academic involvements have also challenged me to grasp those concepts through unconventional means: comedic skits, satirical essays, previously confidential documentaries, and bizarre metaphors of food as government entities…

Although half of my senior year has passed by, the lessons and memories I fostered from my academic courses and social interactions have ingrained themselves into my future scrapbook. As much as I sought to continue learning from the reality around me to eventually make a powerful impact against the injustices that run rampant, I aspired to retain my sense of identity and creativity. Much like the veterans’ testimonies with Winter Soldier , I committed myself to understanding myself before getting lost within the (unpredictable) complexities of what lies around me. Like the name suggests, political science has taught me to understand and question the science behind the politics that govern our behaviors and beliefs.