Dr. Howe often points out how different I was as a freshman – timid, quiet,
always hanging in the back of the classroom. Many people saw me this way. In my
tenth-grade yearbook, there was a section where homeroom teachers described their
students with a quote. Everyone got a personalized description that read like dialogue
from a teen comedy, except of course, myself. Mine read “quiet and reserved” because
that was the best Mr. McKeever could come up with.
Despite all the evidence I previously cited, I do not believe I was ever the shy kid.
I could identify the spaces I was comfortable in, and in those spaces, I would be exactly
the way people who have come to know me would recognize – loud, a little airheaded,
but alive. I have been the same person throughout the different stages of my life, though
perhaps with varying degrees of freedom to express that.
When I entered college, I entered a new country. Although Guam is still a United
States territory, it is still a very different place to grow up. I did not love high school and I
was not sure that I was going to love college. I maintained my quiet caution that first Fall
in 2016, searching for the places where I felt welcomed, the places that I felt could be
home.
By the end of that quarter, Rakel Engles, former Honors Program Coordinator,
announced to our UHNR 101 class that there was an opening in the Honors Office. I,
needing money, submitted my name much to the surprise of literally everyone. From the
impression I had given, I cannot blame them. But nevertheless, I showed up, handed
over my résumé, and made the case for myself – something I hadn’t yet done in
America.
Now over three years later, it has become apparent just how important that little
victory was. I was not only welcomed, but rewarded for who I am. Throughout all the
different quarters I’ve given to Honors, I’ve seen South Hall morph into one of the
spaces I’d mentioned earlier. It became my literal home, and its inhabitants my
figurative family. Though I am sad to leave, these past years have probably been my
freest and I’ll be forever grateful that Honors gave them to me.
- Ethan Hoffman (Class of 2020, English)