Embodying the Liberal Arts

Jackie Ricca is pursuing an Earth and Oceanographic Science and Environmental Studies major with a minor in Education. She is back at Bowdoin as a senior after a year abroad in New Zealand. She discuss how her education has given her a sense of responsibility and her study away provided some life-altering perspective.

Hannah Baggs, from Columbus, OH, is graduating from Bowdoin with a coordinate major in Earth and Oceanographic Studies and Education. She reflects on how she came to see herself as a doer rather than a thinker. Hannah also discusses the significance of women as mentors in finding her way. In the fall, Hannah will work at the Keystone Science School in Colorado.

Senior Roya Moussapour is a Physics major with an Education minor from Larchmont, NY. She reflects on the significance of family in her life, moments when her mother acted like a “helicopter parent” and why she’s called “Dad” in her a capella group. Having lived off-campus for two years, Roya weighs on the College’s decision to limit off-campus student housing. Roya has worked for NASA and will work for an economic consulting firm after graduation.

Hailing from Oakland, CA, Jack Mitchell is a senior majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Education. He discusses how his interaction with a man in a YMCA hot tub shaped the course of his learning for the past three years. Jack shares how he became a more confident and competent person by working as a rafting guide and trip leader.

David Wu, from San Francisco, is double majoring in Economics and Government and minoring in Asian Studies. My conversation with David is first in a mini-series of episodes with students who were in my first-year seminar their first semester at Bowdoin and who have taken a course with me in their senior year. David discusses how he thinks fellow students waste time at Bowdoin and how he overcame his culture shock to be confident in the classroom. David started a financial services business while at Bowdoin and will continue this work after graduation.

Dylan Goodwill is a senior from Window Rock, Arizona majoring in Mathematics and Education and minoring in History. She is Diné, Lakota and Dakota; Dylan serves as Co-President of the Native American Student Association at Bowdoin and was elected to be the At-Large Representative for the Ivy Native Council. She offers advice for Native students considering elite colleges and talks about the challenges of being in the Northeast in the midst of the activism at Standing Rock.

Kate Berkley is a junior from Kansas City, MO who is studying political theory and literature. She reflects on her decision not to study away from Bowdoin and why she limited her participation in extracurricular activities. Last summer, she knocked my socks off as my research assistant. This summer, she'll be in Wyoming leading wilderness trips with middle schoolers.

Kyle Losardo, from Harrison, RI, describes how he has found a way to listen to his inner self and be confident in his beliefs. As a white male conservative, he works through political tension by engaging in conversations rooted in trust. Kyle is an offensive lineman on Bowdoin’s football team and plays guitar in the student band Duck Blind. He has been accepted into the Bowdoin Teacher Scholars program and will be student teaching math in a Portland, ME middle school next semester.

Ty Johnson is a senior from Baltimore who is majoring in Government and minoring in dance. He discusses the challenges of being understood and valued as a 23-year-old black man in the U.S. and abroad. Ty reflects on how he has found meaning and purpose through great books.

Emily Weyrauch, a senior from Connecticut, discusses her focus on developing more meaningful relationships. She explains how her class on bird songs led to her serving as artist-in-residence on a small island in the Bay of Fundy. Emily is an English major with a concentration in creative writing and an Education minor. She is the managing editor of The Bowdoin Orient.

Born in Hiroshima, Japan and raised in New York City, senior Mitsuki Nishimoto describes how Prep for Prep enabled her to attend Bowdoin College. Becoming an Asian Studies major, she believes, might be the point when she stopped passing as a "model minority." Mitsuki is co-president of the Asian Studies Association and is on the residential life head staff.

Ryan Strange is a senior from East Granby, CT who is majoring in Government and minoring in Education. He recounts his strangest experiences at Bowdoin and in Los Angeles, where he interned at HBO this summer. Ryan reflects on the reasons he mentors with Harpswell Coastal Academy's Gender and Sexuality Alliance and why he decided to join the Residential Life staff in his senior year.

Diego Guerrero is a rising junior from Dallas majoring in math. Despite being motivated primarily by a desire to skip high school classes, his exploratory visit to Bowdoin gave him a sense of what it would be like for college to be more than a to-do item. Diego finds it easy to connect with professors during office hours. He worked on my #teachertweets project as a Gibbons Fellow this summer.

Greg Koziol is a rising senior from Summit, NJ. He discusses how he has adjusted his self-understandings and priorities after sustaining two concussions. Greg is a Gender and Women’s Studies major with a minor in Computer Science. He is a co-founder of Bowdoin’s Board Game Club and recommends three of his favorites.

Esther Nunoo discusses the role of intuition in her life and how she is trying to trust her gut more often. A rising senior majoring in Anthropology, Esther reflects on how Bowdoin has challenged her spiritually, academically, and socially – but not in the ways she had anticipated. As a first-gen student, Esther talks about the challenges of explaining Bowdoin to her family and what she learned while studying abroad in India. Esther is from Ghana and the Bronx.

Harriet Fisher is studying patterns of arrests for heroin possession in Maine through the Gibbons Fellowship. As the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) President, she wants to ensure that BSG offers a safe space for all students to air their concerns about and hopes for campus affairs. Harriet is a Government and Legal Studies major with a minor in Education. She hails from Brooklyn, NY and hopes to eat lunch with her professors more often.

You may find John Sledge wandering around Brunswick, and noting the effects of his presence in the community, as he enjoys his second summer in Maine. John reflects on his difficult academic transition to Bowdoin and how he sees the liberal arts as a site for radicalism. He reveals his arachnophobia to all listeners and closes with an a cappella invocation for our troubled times. John is a rising junior who hails from New Orleans.

On the heels of the Cavaliers' NBA Finals win, Cleveland native Olivia Bean discusses the significance of carbs, friendship, and solitude in her life. She explains why she is no longer pre-med, despite asking for and receiving a doctor's kit for Christmas every year, beginning at the age of 2. Olivia believes the liberal arts have made her a better citizen of the world. She is on campus this summer developing the first-year orientation trips for the Outing Club. Olivia is a Chemistry major with a concentration in teaching and an Education minor.

In May, Shanna Yue graduated with honors in neuroscience and earned a minor in education studies. She reveals her secret to her staying calm despite her worry that choosing a path based on current interests might close down others. Shanna was co-leader for Harpswell Community Mentoring through the McKeen Center for the Common Good. This summer she is working as a research assistant in a pediatric endocrinology lab at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC. Shanna is from Dobbs Ferry, NY.

Rising Senior Walter Chacón is a Sociology major with a minor in Education Studies from Lynn, MA. He discusses the need for teachers, professors, and others working in student support roles to possess cultural competency. His upcoming honors project examines the experiences of students of color who make up the "privileged poor," those who attend elite prep schools prior to matriculating at highly-selective colleges, and students of color who may be "doubly disadvantaged" because they are underprepared by their schools to succeed in colleges like Bowdoin. Walter is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and a Senior Interviewer for Bowdoin College Admissions.

David Jimenez, a graduating senior from Pittsburgh, discusses his Catholic faith, conservative perspectives, and the courage it takes to live with commitments that challenge the status quo. He reflects on the significance of his gap year in Camden, NJ, his founding of the Eisenhower Forum, and how exhausting it can be when living only with 18-22 year-olds. David heads to Romania on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship and hopes to pursue a career in diplomacy.

Marcella Jimenez, a graduating senior from Dallas, Texas, discusses coming to Bowdoin from a bi-cultural and bilingual family. She reflects on her decision to become a Spanish major, the complex racial dynamics of her campus activism, and what she's learned from middle school girls.

Ryan Szantyr, a graduating senior from Poland, Maine, offers the advice he wishes he had heard has a first-gen student. A Government major and Cinema Studies minor, he weighs the uses and abuses of Yik Yak and reads students' aversion to vulnerability through Batman v Superman. Ryan meditates on failures of understanding on campus. He is Co-President of the Bowdoin Film Society.

Anna Williams talks about what it was like to go to the same college as her two older sisters and father. She reflects on the challenges of developing a chronic illness in her first year, but how that experience led her to Peer Health. She describes how she learned to talk about her privilege, but fell short in cultivating friendships across difference. Anna will be an elementary school apprentice teacher next year.

Ashley Bomboka reflects on what it is like to be a black woman at Bowdoin who feels the weight of the College's long history. She discusses how she learned to process failure in the pursuit of knowledge. Ashley is President of the African American Society. She hopes to return to the Twin Cities after graduation.

Graduating senior Michelle Kruk reflects on her experiences at Bowdoin as a Polish/Mexican woman from Chicago. She is Vice-President of the Bowdoin Student Government and Student Director of the Women's Resource Center. She heads to Poland on a Fulbright in a few months.