Wild Hope Fellows

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve?

Design tries to solve communication between humans. Design is in everything, so it should be used to make things more accessible and create common ground. It’s art, but it has a purpose and intention.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

The value of being a Wild Hope fellow is opening yourself up to dialogue and new perspectives. There’s a sense where we will be talking about things that are challenging and challenging each other, so that’s what motivated me to join.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

I think being a Wild Hope fellow will teach me a lot about vocation and gaining a sense of talking about things openly and having open discussion. Having open discussions is essential and talking with people about things that are usable for your life is so important. 

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

I tend to be combative in conversation, and I’ll always ask questions and say something that provokes thought. I hope I bring good ideas.

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you?  How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth? 

To me, that means growth, growth and understanding. I feel like in life, as an artist, I have a responsibility to create art for others. I just hope I’m spreading positivity and giving people a different lens on life.

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve?

Growing up, I always wanted to do something business related, and out of all the concentrations, finance intrigued me the most for having a good mix of numbers and people. PLU always needs finance majors and business majors, they help keep things functioning.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

I think it’s super important to figure out and discuss vocation and what God has planned out for every individual. Especially when we’re in college and figuring out what to do with our lives, it’s good to figure out what we’re called to do and what our purpose in life is.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

Going along with what I said, it will help me discover what I really care about and what my purpose is. Even if I don’t figure it out right now, it will give me a foundation to work off of and give me questions on whether or not I’m doing what I want in life.

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

From meeting the other fellows, I believe I’m one of the few athletes, so I feel that gives me a different perspective on things. I think I bring a lot from my past to the table and everyone brings unique perspectives.

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you?  How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth? 

Being kind and a nice person is a good way to start, but I want to be a good influence to others and to my community.

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve? 

I love how people-oriented it is, in any kind of capacity – I am currently working on analyzing 10 years of PLU financial aid data – striving for the whole picture. I am trying to understand the need in society and why there is that need; sometimes we are not concerned with the “why” only the “how” so it is very versatile.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

The value is how it engages you in reflection. Think about the “why”, always looking to further your answer when someone asks you anything. Being a fellow gives you tools to answer these questions more effectively.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

By constantly asking myself why I am on this path. During the time with the fellows, having the ability to ask this question and encourage others to ask these questions and uplift. Better job at answering that “why” question which I feel like I will never stop asking this question.

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

My social science interest – the way I experience the world as a first generation, person of color, and someone also identifies as queer, all these layers to the way that I am filtering this world through. Also my interest in my future makes what I am putting in the fellows more sustainable.

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you? How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth?

The meaning is a little redundant; you really can’t have one without the other. Two parter. Focusing on the human deficit in an earth-oriented perspective. Interested in the access to choices which help the earth flourish. Focus should be to expand ecological flourishing.

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve?

There’s not a lot of schools that have secondary specific education program, so I wanted to focus on it, and want to help in an area that needs a lot of help.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

It really helps in college, we arrive and are told in a certain amount of years to do something for the rest of our life so having the constant conversation and getting to explore the idea of what you are interested in or not is a valuable conversation that needs to keep happening.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

Talking about vocation has been important to me, especially what you are going into. A lot of the time you hear a lot of pastoral stuff; talking about things you are passionate about. Valuable to analyze and connect with what you really want to do especially during the tough times in the school semester.

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

Coming from a small town community; I come from a town that is 90% Mexican and the rest is Indigenous, interesting perspective to come from as it is a pretty underserved community. With vocation you talk a lot about community and guidance within it, so being a part of a loving community is something that I bring. I would consider myself to be a pretty bright person!

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you?  How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth?

Bettering your part of the world with your work with the vocation that you are called to. A domino effect where self inspiration of vocation is intertwined with yourself and your community; extends to yourself and the world around you.

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve?

Environmental studies is important to me because it bridges the gap between social studies and science. It helps make understanding global issues accessible to the public.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

How diverse the group and education of the fellowship is. There are a lot of interesting perspectives and majors.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

I think it’s helping to tie my academic and educational values to my lifestyle and career values, which helps make me feel like there is a bigger goal than just graduating.

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

Everyone is bringing really awesome traits, but I am the only person in my major here. So, bringing that environmental voice to the cohort about vocation is important because we don’t always talk about environmental justice.

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you?  How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth?

I think that our culture is very disconnected from our personal connection to the earth, and it’s very important for me to have that conversation with others about coexisting and conserving ecological wellbeing. Finding that intersection is important.

• What do you love about your major and what problems does your major try to solve?

Both of my majors talk about topics that are not talked about a lot, they cover a lot about people of color, feminism, and the LGBTG+ community. Both majors keep those doors open for conversation and education.

• What is the value of being a Wild Hope Fellow? Why should others think about being a fellow?

More people should know about vocation – everyone has one, Wild Hope gives the opportunity to discover this.

• How do you think being a Wild Hope Fellow will impact you in your personal life/your life after PLU/future career?

They will know what they will be doing more, I came to PLU with a plan but it all changed. Wild Hope will keep them grounded and keep growing after they graduate.

• What unique experiences or traits are you bringing to Wild Hope?

Bringing the experience of being a black woman in a predominantly white constitution. Also being an artist, a sense of creativity and passion.

• The Wild Hope Center strives to promote human and ecological flourishing. What does this mean to you?  How do you see yourself contributing to human and ecological flourishing not just for yourself but for others and/or the earth?

Finding a motive and inspiration for what you do and why. Seeing that blossom and seeing what you can make out of that using personal experience and the things around you. Learning and education – spending time learning about yourself and others is the foundation of the human and ecological flourishing part.