Welcome to Year One
My first year of college held a few significant landmarks. I experienced living away from home for the first time when I moved into the Honors Living Learning Community in Terry Hall at the beginning of autumn quarter. I officially became an English major midway through winter quarter, a process far simpler than that of my STEM major friends (turns out to be an English major all you have to do is pass one class and sign a form). I found my opportunity to integrate myself further into and give back to the Honors community by becoming a Peer Educator.
I have kept a journal since starting college that I call my Happy Journal, where I write down three happy things from every day before I fall asleep. Here are a few happy moments I've picked out from freshman year:
- Went sailing on Lake Washington during Dawg Daze - Placed in the annual Husky Triwizard Trivia Tournament - Made dorm room dinner of mac and cheese and green beans with my roommate after a late night Fred Meyer run - Explored an interactive exhibit about woods and iPads and poetry with a friend at Henry Art Gallery - Got to pet dogs and eat muffins in the courtyard next to Lander Hall - Sledding with family and friends on the two consecutive weekends of winter quarter snow - Took a trip downtown to the MOHAI museum with classmates - Played Seattle trivia in one of my Honors classes and our professor gave us all Fran's chocolates as a reward - Went on a retreat to Pack Forest with my fellow Honors Peer Educators - Took a field trip with an Honors professor to the Halo museum on the Microsoft campus to learn about tech jobs for humanities major - Wandered the University Street Fair with friends |
First Year Highlights
I wrote this reflection at the end of my fall quarter of freshman year during my Honors 100 class. Reading it back, I think I was scared to admit how uncertain I was feeling at the time, candy-coating my experience in confidence and enthusiasm. It was particularly interesting to revisit this essay while writing my learning statement and consider how my reflections on college had changed.
My family and friends teased me about my enthusiasm over this essay for weeks - a study of Aimee Bender's novel An Invisible Sign of My Own through the lens of Sigmund Freud's theory of the fetish. I promise the resulting essay is not as alarming as it sounds, and remains one of my favorite pieces of academic writing I've produced in college to date.
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The story of Medea is one of my long-term obsessions. I have done projects on this story in no fewer than five different classes now across seven years of schooling. This project, my own retelling of the myth, was my final for my Honors class on Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. The story has since been included in my applications to the UW creative writing major, UW's English scholarships and prizes, and creative writing MFA programs across the country.
After eleven years as a student at Alpha Martial Arts and six summers teaching camps, I was awarded the position of Summer Camp Director for the summer of 2019. This position was one of my most exhilarating, exhausting, and rewarding extracurriculars I engaged in this year, an experience I most certainly will not forget.
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