I’m Max, from Moldova, and I’ve also recently graduated from the UWC in Dilijan, Armenia.
I am glad to be attending Lewis & Clark with every one of you! I’ve read your captions and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing how it is possible to connect with all of you on anything from our common values, academic interests, reasons for attending Lewis & Clark, or small joys of life.
I’ve chosen L&C because of its connection to nature; it goes without saying that the proximity to the ocean and the multiple mountainous peaks were a major pull factor (hello geo students:)), but what was an instantaneous yes for me were the green campus and the green areas surrounding the campus. Having lived my past 7-8 years surrounded by two (albeit city) parks, I felt like these would definitely be the places to stroll onto to figure out my thoughts, for I am oftentimes hindered by them.
Moving onto the other side of the scales (no reference whatsoever to being a libra), constantly asking the question why lead to both giving my mom headaches and investing tens of hours in learning chemistry after school time since grade 7, a science which I saw as being able to explain the macro part of the world by breaking down the micro (this is also why my relationship with bio is love-hate, I NEEDED MORE FROM THE BIO TEXTBOOK TO UNDERSTAND THE TOPICS and I ended up spending too much time on finding out extra info online and writing unnecessarily long and not precise first drafts of the Bio EE and IA:))). Generally speaking, I love to bring in all STEM fields to gain a bottom-up understanding of the subject, so while my major will probably be Chem or Bio & Chem, I would genuinely take the Phys 151 sequence or Math 200+ courses out of interest.
Naturally, after spending most time by myself studying, I enjoy spending my leisure time with people (other than walking, of course). UWC has been great for being able to spend one and a half hours in the canteen on a Saturday/Sunday morning chatting with fellow morning people (WHERE YOU AT), as well as being able to do sports together (volleyball/badminton/table tennis/dodgeball). A relaxed volleyball play in the circle on one of the first days on campus is how I ended up meeting 60% of my friends over the two years, whereas the canteen resulted in profound conversations and strong connections to my peers even after graduating, along with getting to know the staff better.
I see traveling in two different ways. On the one hand, it is an opportunity to unwind and get to know people, like the time I spent with my friends graduating by visiting Georgia, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and stopping by my friends’ places and getting to know their families. On the other hand, I would purposefully travel to (guess what, again) learn, absorb all of the knowledge about a country and see any readings/previous videos turn into reality.
I am amazed by how many of you I will get to see on campus within a few days, and how many upper-year students we also have from the same UWC community! If there is one thing I hope to be able to achieve during my time at L&C is rewire my neurons to enjoy life more and to be less anxious. If there is one thing I want you to know about me is… well, come and get to know more than one thing about me! See you soon!