007 Agent Manifesto

If I have learned one thing in school it is that I have learned very little. There is a famous quote by Aristotle who said, “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know”. So, it was not that I didn’t receive great teaching and knowledge, but that, along with that knowledge I gained a wisdom that what I have learned is merely a drop in the endless ocean of knowledge to be explored. I can say that my college experience gave me an invaluable tool set which I can now call upon when I do self-directed studies in the future. With that said, this is not the end. After the commencement ceremony and all the celebratory graduation parties end, the hard work to be done still persists. The word commencement literally means the beginning or start. This to me is the start of a new relationship with my education. Where the institution of public schooling is left behind, and my education begins anew with me now in the driver’s seat. It is all very exciting.

I now know at the end of my collegiate career that I have the power to be a social change agent. We all have the power to catalyze social change. Even if your apparent capacity for personal agency seems slight, small changes can have a large cascading effect. I was introduced to this concept at a very low point in my journey when I felt in despair after the earth-shattering Power, Privilege, and the Environment class. The concept is called Emergent Strategies, which is also a wonderful book by Adrienne Maree Brown. Below is a graphic illustrating the concept as described in the book. That is, movements and social change take the form of many collective yet decentralized actions of various scales. Just as flocks of bird’s change shape and form based on the little directional changes of individuals so too are social movements based upon the small directional changes of the individuals.

This has not only given me hope but also showed me that, even though individually my actions may seem insignificant and my efforts therefore a fool’s errand, I have real tangible power to tackle even the largest of issues.

I feel as though the Environmental studies program has opened the door to many concepts and ideas like emergent strategies that where far out of my expertise. I am one of those super seniors. During my college career I have been on the path to completing three very different majors. Originally, I was a Film major focusing on wildlife documentaries. Secondly, I took up a very scientific major, forestry with an emphasis in hydrology. Then finally an Environmental Studies major with an emphasis in geospatial analysis. Even though I have been in college for almost 10 years and at times felt that I had been wasting time by not just getting a degree, in the end I’m grateful. This has given me a very diverse foundation of knowledge with which I can make connections between. An assumption that I hear a lot is that if your studies are in a multitude of areas then you will never know mastery because you are learning only on a surface level. On the contrary, learning across disciplines provides information advantage. For example, if you are in the business of making trains and everyone else is focused on making trains more efficient, but you also know a good amount about biology, you then could create trains based on the shapes of a falcons beak, an idea that no one else making trains would come up with. For that reason, I appreciate my educational indecisiveness and appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the Environmental Studies program.

   

I want to take a moment to thank all the folks that have made an impact on me along my educational path. First, I want to thank my partner Emma. As an ENST graduate she advocated for the Environmental Studies program when I found that Forestry was not for me. I can’t thank her enough for that gift. Secondly, I want to thank my various professors that inspired me with their passion, knowledge, and thoughtfulness. I hope that I can continue to have a relationship with them after graduation. Thirdly, I want to thank my family. Without such a solid educational support structure that they supplied I would not have made it this far. And last but certainly not least I want to send many thanks to my Environmental Studies Cohort. You are all awesome people who I have the utmost respect for. You all have such bright futures ahead and I can wait to watch you all change the world! We made it! Cheers! See you on the big stage! Much love to everyone!