The Imprint of People fom our Past

I want to start out with a little about myself, but only because it sets the foundations for the point I am trying to make. Because this post might be about my life, but it is more importantly about the influence of others and how it can have unforeseeable consequences.

I am a third year university student studying political science: I have just started my capstone project for political science. For the unfamiliar with the concept, a capstone project in undergraduate studies serves the same purpose as a doctoral dissertation at the post-graduate level, except it is slightly less involved. In addition to my capstone project, I am preparing to take the GRE, the Graduate Record Examination is the national exam required to get into most graduate programs, and looking into investing at as much as another six years of my life into getting a PHD. In addition to my studies I'm an avid follower of domestic and international political discourse. On top of that one of my peculiarities, since everyone has peculiarities, is that when I am alone, driving in the car I like to give fiery speeches full of rhetoric and radical ethos to my imaginary supporters.


Now, what is the point of saying all these things and outing myself as an obsessive political dweeb? Well, the other day I had a moment. It was right about the time when I realized that I was preparing to invest another six years of my life into a discipline that only continues to get more esoteric in thought and is far from viewed as an admirable field of work by most people. I thought to myself, how did I get to this point? What brought me here? After all my life could have taken a much different course. 

When I was younger and up through middle school I always thought I wanted to be a historian. Then when I first got into high school I thought I would study music or mathematics at university. Finally when I got to university I thought I was going to do a double major in Sociology and Religious Studies. Yet my life wound up taking a very different route from what it could have. So I started to look back in my mind to determine how my life got started on this course.


The first exposure I can ever remember having to politically conscious life was when I was a young child, probably in grade school or junior high school. On Sunday mornings most kids get dragged to church or watch cartoons, but being raised in a house that was not particularly religious and only having one television, I was always subjected to watching whatever my father watched on television on Sunday morning. This meant sitting and watching Meet The Press, McLaughlin Group, and Face the Nation (usually all three) as I ate my cinnamon toast crunch or cocoa puffs. I was no political savant, quite the contrary, in fact, I'm not even sure that at the time I understood the nature of the thing I was being exposed to nor the implications of it. None the less, I suppose you could call this the planting of the seed.

Later on, in high school all of this exposure made me a more politically aware teenager than I realized. Then in my sophomore year I was required to take AP Government to fulfill my graduation requirements. The best part is, the teacher was amazing, one of the few teachers in my years as a student that actually inspired students to learn and kept them interested and motivated to work. It was probably the most interesting or second most interesting class I took in my entire high school career. It was this on teacher that spurred my first active participation in politics. It was in that year that I actually started to understand the political environment around, I begin to read books by Chomsky and other contemporary political thinkers, and even went to my first political rally (Operation Cease Fire in Washington D.C. in 2005).


For a long time nothing happened. My political awareness kind of faded into the background as my next two years of high school passed by and other things came to the forefront of my intellectual life. When I got to college, in my first semester I thought I wanted to get my degree in Religious Studies, religion had always been a intellectual curiosity for me since I myself was never very religious. However, in my first semester I took Intro to Religious Studies, not only was the professor awful, but the entire methodology espoused by the department was off putting. In the same semester I took a really amazing International Politics  class with a young professor who was engaging and it really sparked my interest once again and It was at that point that I decided that I wanted to major in political science.


What followed as I completed the major was a series of more or less interesting classes in political science. The professor I had taken my first international politics class left the school after they did not renew his contract, and I was a little hesitant to take any more international politics classes because I was a little afraid that the preceding event had been an aberration. However, in my first semester in my third year at university I took the leap and took another international class, this time with a new professor, who the head of the department swore up and down to me would be just as good or better than the person that he had replaced. He wasn't exaggerating. It was this professor that really got me interested in pursuing Political Science beyond the undergraduate level. His classes were in depth and taught at a level higher than any other class I had taken in my previous year of scholarship. His classes were thought provoking, and required readings some of the most stimulating things that I have ever read.


So here I sit. Now nearing the end of my third year at university, and preparing to spend another six years after my fourth year continuing to broaden my knowledge in the field. What lead me here? The influence of four people; My father, a high school teacher, and two college professors. Interacting with them has left a permanent imprint on my life and lead me that neither any of them  or I could foresee. I have no doubt that many people share a similar story, I just wonder if they ever think about it, reflect, and feel as greatful as I do that people were there to steer them unknowingly toward greatness.


/s/
Sarx