I’m grateful and appreciative to have received this opportunity, during my time at SIUE I’ve been fortunate to have made meaningful connections with fellow students and accomplished goals created for myself at the beginning of the semester. Although I commute, I took the initiative to go to Lovejoy Library and study and/or complete collaborative assignments with classmates. At times we would find ourselves “off track” networking ideas for plans after college. It is fulfilling to have someone with similar aspirations to talk about topics that interest us. It was clear I needed to make the necessary mental adjustments to be successful in the new criteria. I could distinguish the changes from high school right away, especially with the distance between classes. Thus, experience leads to improvement and adjustment if one allows themselves to develop over time.

If I were to describe myself in one word it would be introverted. Knowing this, I knew working with other team members in this new environment would be a challenge. However, I also knew over time I would adjust to my team members by collaborating on future projects for class. For one of our first collaborative assignments although we were already introduced I need to reintroduce myself to spark a personal conversation. My teammates for the research team I was working on the project with got to know more about me as I did them which made us comfortable to express our ideas. We came up with intriguing interview questions that made students think considerably and could go in depth when answering.

Some examples of the questions were:

• What does racial injustice mean to you?

• Have you personally experienced racial injustice?

• How do you think we as a community can help combat against racial injustice?