This story appeared in the Fall 2020 Letters & Science magazine.
I’m majoring in Classics (Ancient Greek and Classical Humanities) and English (Creative Writing). Coming here, I had a pretty strong idea of my interests. I had been writing and performing all throughout my adolescence, so Creative Writing just felt like a given to me. It was studying classics that felt like more of an interest, less of a muscle already attached to my skeleton.
As a queer, low-income student on campus, I knew that every space I entered wouldn’t be full of people I could relate to, so I prepared for that. I came to UW-Madison as a member of the 11th cohort of First Wave Scholars. First Wave is a full-tuition, four-year scholarship program that gives first-year students a head start through classes offered the summer before freshman year. That summer, I developed so much trust with total strangers in my scholarship program.
I am grateful for the moments I’ve been eating a meal, crying, laughing, or traveling and realized how full the people I’ve met in Madison make me feel. The people I’ve met and worked with at UW have urged and enabled me to grow, excel, and share that with others in ways I can’t fully express.
As a First Wave scholar, you get to develop your craft as part of a high-level artistic community.
I typically balance somewhere between 17 and 19 credits a semester, my work as a writer and a position at the Division of Arts on campus. I learn from my peers, many of whom are also balancing careers as working artists.
I have a hard time imagining myself matching the image of what a typical “Badger” looks like. I’ve never been inside of Camp Randall. I don’t own a single piece of red-and-white clothing. That said, I am proud of the Badgers I know who enter this university, which seems to contain more barriers than shortcuts for many of us—and then, to see us thrive here? That’s beyond pride for me.
I’ve been an executive board and competing team member with the UpRise Poetry Collective since my first year on campus. We compete at the international level for spoken word and performance poetry, and at last year’s competition we ended up taking home the “Best Writing as a Team” award. Most of my fellow teammates and I won individual prizes for solo poems and performances.
My long-term goal is to be the first in my family to go to graduate school. By the time I graduate, I hope to witness the ascension of every Madison restaurant food-truck worker to celebrity status (I will never be able to express my gratitude to those legends for keeping me fed). I’d also like to give a special shout-out to the creative writing department—thank you for your excellence in teaching and caring for your students.