Hello! My name is Maya and I first discovered The College of Wooster when I attended a summer tennis camp years ago and it never occurred to me that I would actually come here for college! But here I am and I am so happy to be here! The quaint and quiet college town definitely appealed to me, and the academic opportunities and the outside the classroom experiences were just as impressive. It’s also relatively close to my home, which is quite nice since I am very much a homebody! I have a passion for Spanish language, literature, and culture and my hope is to fluent one day! I am so excited to see what the semester brings, however my biggest goals for the semester are to maintain good grades, meet new people, and of course, learn new things!

Hey guys!

My name is Asha, and I will be your TA this semester. I am a senior history major at Wooster. My Independent Study will most likely be about the artist-activism of three individuals during the civil rights movement: James Baldwin, Nina Simone, and Lorraine Hansberry. You all can come to me with any questions you might have about classes here at Wooster, as well as logistical things such as how to check out books from the library and where to eat on campus.

I’m also very involved on campus. Currently I am a member of the Black Student Association, the Black Women’s Organization, I’m a board member for the Women of Images, and I am the president of my sorority, Delta Phi Alpha. Please feel free to come talk about clubs and extra-curricular activities on campus, or just how to get involved on campus and meet new people.

I’m looking forward to working and learning with you all this semester!

Hi,

My name is Tanaka and I think art is the most beautiful thing there is. I think creation is the most beautiful act we are capable of performing, and everything we do is in an attempt to express ourselves and our desire to create, through some medium: art, music, writing, and every other human discipline. Even science. Perhaps especially science. Science goes a step further to examine how we create. Philosophy asks why. It is an act of creation to understand creation itself.

I hope you can tell I like to ask big questions, and attempt to answer them. I fail too, spectacularly- but failing is fine. No good journey is smooth. All boring journeys are though. I could argue that I like asking big questions, especially when I already have the answers and know I have them. Even more so when I do not know the answers I have. It is possible to have something and not know you have it. Do you know what you have? Who you are? Why you are who you are? I want to ask those questions about everything. This semester, in this class, about latin America and the journeys that brought it to today.

This is why I came to Wooster, to find out the answers I already have, and to learn to ask bigger, deeper questions- their nature, and how to answer them- this last one, more than the answers themselves. The answers do not really matter. The journey to a place matters infinitely more than the destination itself. There are many destinations.

I chose Wooster because of the academic curiosity it creates in its students, and the environment that nurtures this curiosity and matures it into questions that matter. Questions that define us and shape our thoughts, fears, actions, lives, and legacies. Wooster chose me. I hope, for reasons similar to mine for choosing it: because there was a choice and there was no choice. It was meant to happen and it was not. But it happened anyway, like the rest of life, and I delight in this fact. That everything I ever hoped for, and ever feared, everything I ever dreamed, and dreaded, is happening at once. And it is oh, so beautiful. Wooster is amazing.

My goal this semester is to grow. In one small way, every single day.

To branch out of my peer group every week, and maintain a relationship with someone familiar, to write an article, (one better than this one I hope.) to read one chapter of that book I never find time for, and to give more than I take.

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If you do not live in the moment, where do you live?

Hey everyone, my name is Jonah. One interesting thing about me is that I have been playing ultimate frisbee for the past five years. I have played on a few different teams and have recently started coaching frisbee as well. I chose Wooster because I was looking for small liberal arts schools and as soon as I came to this campus I realized that this was the school for me. It also doesn’t hurt that Wooster has a good ultimate frisbee team! My biggest goal for this semester is just to learn how college works. I want to learn the in’s and out’s of Wooster and maybe even find a way to sleep comfortably in my dorm bed!

Hi, it’s Keira! The first time I came to Wooster I didn’t know anything about it, so I wasn’t expecting anything special. I was super wrong, because the second I stepped on campus, it felt like home. That feeling only intensified when I came back for an overnight in October. An interesting fact about me is last year I had to sleep in the Denver airport overnight along because my flight was delayed, causing me to miss my flight to Jackson Hole, Wyoming on my way to the dude ranch I work on in the summer. Some of my goals for the semester include getting to know new people, learning a lot of new things, and staying on budget with my flex money!