I decided to major in English because I want to go to law school, and I feel like many people applying to law school have the standard political science major, so I wanted to set myself apart. I also wanted to develop my reading and writing skills, which I feel are incredibly important for law school.

I chose law school for a variety of reasons. I want to be able to know a salient part of our society. I also want to have a better understanding of when my rights are being violated so I can stand up for things I believe in. Ultimately, I think it will be a very fulfilling career.

I never really understood the value of going to school with other people because I'm somebody who learns through his own volition. I'll randomly decide to learn things on my own. So I've often thought of school as an institution I didn't need because I didn't want a group of individuals telling me how to learn.

But now that I'm in college, I've learned that one of the most important aspects of college is to develop your thoughts with other people.Students are here to bounce ideas off one another. When you learn from each other, you get pissed off sometimes because everybody doesn't have the same opinion, but it's still really valid.

I've had some great professors at Miami. In the English department, the professors have helped my writing a lot by giving me productive criticism on my writing style. I also really enjoyed a first-year political science class that I took here. The professor didn't sugar-coat anything. He gave his opinion, but he backed it up. He liked to say, "I have an opinion. You'll know my opinion, and I'm right." It was refreshing and provocative. He opened your mind to the possibility that if you didn't come to your beliefs through logical reasoning, then you were not putting proper thought into it.

I often go to the Office of Diversity Affairs in Shriver to study. The room is full of colorful, original art that depicts people of different demographics. I run into people I know there all the time. It's a place anyone can go to, not just people outside the majority. All students are welcome. There's usually music playing quietly. It's away from all of the hustle and bustle that you see everywhere else on campus. It's the one place I feel removed from the pressure of college life.

One of my passions is social justice. That's why I got involved in NAACP. As the political action chair, I look for ways to make this campus more aware of civil rights and civil liberties. As social justice intern for Hillel, I'm working to get us involved in helping the community directly rather than just doing fundraising from afar and giving money.

I want to get people to interact with all people so we can learn from them and actually see what we're doing to inspire us to do even more. I started out doing this because a few people wanted me to, but I guess it's frustrating to hear many Americans claim "you can do anything you want if you work hard enough." I want tangible evidence that what we're doing in our country doesn't work for everyone. I want to be able to pinpoint those issues and problems and work to fix them.