Throughout my educational career I’ve been greeted by the same question hundreds of times: why political science? What do you want to do with that degree? I’ve always delivered the same answer: because I want to do good in this world. However, that answer is usually followed with a lot of snickers and doubts about the corruption and the inability for politicians to make a viable, ethical change. Over the years I have allowed these doubts to transform my passion, to question the future I had always mapped out for myself.

From a young age I learned my truth: I believe in humanity. I believe in the good, I believe that when it comes down to it people would rather help then hurt. I understand for many this notion is not only untrue, but it’s naive. However, to me it is what I have based my life on, what I have centered my future upon.

Whenever I attempt to explain what grabbed hold of me when it comes to politics I’m usually greeted with a lot of confused faces and that’s too-good-to-be-true laughs. I was an odd child to say the least. Some kids watched Sponge-Bob, but I listened to MLK speeches, I read books about our nation’s history, I watched anything and everything about activists coming together to make a change. I discovered this thing I like to call political magic, I discovered in the darkest parts of our history there were roots of humanity. Watching a diverse group of people come together, some of the people holding no true stake in the matter and push for a change is a magical experience, it became an inspiring experience.

I think one of the most powerful things in the world is the ability to make a change, so many people don’t understand that they hold this power, they let it slip through their finger tips. From a young age I decided to take hold of that and that is why I am a political science major and I am so unbelievably proud of that fact. I am not looking to sell my soul, or lie, or succumb to the corruption that people have told me is inevitable. I am going to push for a change that I seek, that the greater good needs because that is my truth.