My passion for the earth has been a driving force for choosing my college, area of study, and goals post-graduation. When I heard about the Wilderness and Civilization program, I was so excited at the possibility of being able to spend a semester combining my passions with being outdoors, with education and my GLI theme of inequality and human rights. I wanted to explore my own relationship with nature and drive into how to make it accessible to everyone. The outdoors brings people together in way that is hard to match. Combining social work, journalism and my passion for the environment throughout this program has been an amazing opportunity.

Throughout this program I had went on multiple camping trips, filled with art, hikes, conversations and learning. The classroom learning was extremely eye opening in partnership with these adventures. Throughout this semester I dove into my personal ethics surrounding nature. Here is an excerpt from my writing on my code of ethics, “My definition of wilderness and personal ethics surrounding it is constantly evolving and has pushed me to reevaluate my relationship to the lands I take up space on. At the core of my personal ethics is decentering humans from being the main focus of the earth, broadening the scope of wilderness from only capital W wilderness to all forms of connection to the earth and acknowledging that pristine wilderness is an idea of colonialism and doesn’t not accurately represent American under the care of Indigenous peoples.” This exploration of my ethics directly related to my theme in GLI.