AUTUMN QUARTER

Moving across the country

In mid-September, my dad and I embarked on the first of our Chicago to Seattle roadtrips. When my dad offered to drive me out to University, I thought he was crazy. It made packing easier for me, sure, but a five day road trip across the country was a huge commitment. However, this ended up being the best possible way for me to ease the anxiety of moving far away from home. Having my dad there to move me in and make the transition easier was indispensable, and something I am deeply grateful for. This period in my life marks the first major example of pushing myself FAR out of my comfort zone. As I moved into Willow Hall, truly alone for the first time, I found myself wondering how I would make Seattle my own. One of my favorite ways of exploring a new city is by engaging with the local art and music scenes. When I first moved to Seattle, I immediately began to check out the music venues and upcoming concerts in an effort to become acquainted with the city. My first concert in Seattle was seeing King Princess at the Showbox in SODO, one of my favorite artists at the time, and the incredible experience opened the door for many more shows to come. The concert was my first time using public transport to venture out of the U-District. A recurrent theme throughout my time at UW has been forcing myself to leave U-District, and going to see King Princess at the Showbox was a great way to do that.

Starting classes

During my Advising & Orientation session over the summer, I found myself quite confused which classes I should be taking, and how many, and when, and… you get the idea. The majors I wanted to pursue did not have a chronological sequence to them with prerequisites like other majors often have, so I was overwhelmed by the sense of freedom and lack of structure. I felt a good way to remedy that would be join a First-Year Interest Group (FIG), which is a clustered group of classes centered around a specific topic. I joined the Law, Societies, and Justice FIG, which was the only way to take the Intro to LSJ class as a Fall quarter first-year, and I’m so glad I was able to begin this major exploration right off the bat. One of my first high stakes assignments for my Intro to Law, Societies, and Justice class was a case brief for a 2016 Supreme Court case called Utah V. Strieff. ​I knew going into the class that I wanted to major in LSJ, but I felt that my lack of experience in high school with extracurriculars like Mock Trial or Model UN left me unprepared to use and understand legal jargon, which was the basis of this assignment. I struggled a lot while writing the case brief, and devoted hours of research to ensuring that I understood the facts of the case and was using the correct language. I ended up getting a perfect score on the assignment, and I was incredibly proud of this score because I felt as though it validated my place in the class.