Emma Greeven

Honors 100
10 October 2016
Assignment #1 Who Are You?

My experience applying to college was not one that I look back on with fondness. I imagine one
day I will see it with the perspective of one who has overcome such childish fears, but for now it
remains a stressful knot that hangs in my recent memory. And the reason for my struggles was,
and still is, this: my interests and passions expand far beyond the limits of any singular degree
path. I agonized for months trying to conform and pick one subject to pursue for the rest of my
life.
And then I discovered the University of Washington Honors Program.
The message delivered by the staff at the informational session was unlike any other that I had
heard at the six schools I had visited prior. Unlike the others, who, although they preached
diversity and exploration, demanded that I focus up by my junior year, the UW Honors program
promised a diverse, well-rounded, and very personalized approach to my college education. I
was enchanted by the idea of an interdisciplinary program that praises the connections that can
be applied between two completely different departments, such as neurobiology and poetry, the
honors seminar I am taking this quarter.
I like to say that I myself am I a bizarre series of contradictions. I am an atheist, but I enjoy
listening to country and gospel music. I love writing in all its forms but I am a horrendous
speller. In high school I was a varsity athlete and in in the marching band.
I have always abhorred the idea of being only one kind of myself, one version of the infinite
incarnations I could be. I want to do everything, be everything. I want to try one career and then
in ten years completely switch over and take what I have learned to a new field. I want to live a
rich, full life experiencing all that I can.
My father always says that there is no wrong answer, that all the paths intimidatingly lined up in
front of me are all good ones, and that I will be happy.
But, I think to myself, if theyre all good I want to walk them all.
So, although the process of selecting a school and leaving home was, and still is, a painful
process, I do feel that this is where I was meant to end up. And that sure feeling, one that I almost
never have, exists because of the word interdisciplinary. Before UW I could never think of a
word to describe myself and my desire to incorporate multiple fields in to my career. I feared that
I was too different, and that I would be forced to conform at university.
What lead me to the UW Honors program was the promise that you would let me be myself.