{"id":1333,"date":"2021-05-06T08:19:07","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T12:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2021-05-06T08:19:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T12:19:09","slug":"senior-spotlight-a-series-on-our-graduating-students-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/2021\/05\/06\/senior-spotlight-a-series-on-our-graduating-students-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Spotlight: a series on our graduating students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I remember the religion classes I took sophomore year so vividly and having \u201cAh-Ha\u201d moments almost every day. I felt almost like I\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0to become a religion major because studying religion makes me excited and engaged in ways no other subject can.\u00a0<\/p>– eli van buren ’21<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Eli Van Buren ’21<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why did you major in Religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s nothing else I would want to struggle to understand more than the questions asked in the Rel department. I remember the religion classes I took sophomore year so vividly and having \u201cAh-Ha\u201d moments almost every day. I felt almost like I\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0to become a religion major because studying religion makes me excited and engaged in ways no other subject can.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do you imagine yourself in 10 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yikes, my imagination is endless! In 10 years, I think I\u2019ll be taking it easy \u2013 swimming and laughing somewhere nice. I\u2019ll be fluent in Portuguese by then (of course!) and collaborating with other artists in meaningful ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also hope to be much more articulate\/confident and to be continuing to think critically no matter what I\u2019m doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a first-year student has asked your advice about REL courses. What\u2019s the one she shouldn\u2019t dream about missing? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion Health and Healing! It completely changed the ways I understand the body, ritual, and socialization. Easily one of my favorite classes at UVM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you could write any book, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be an interstellar pirate western full of space outlaws, political intrigue, and personal connection. I mean, it would be an allegory for something, but I haven\u2019t worked that bit out yet \u2013 the absurdity of life, maybe. I love a healthy portion of humor in a narrative, but I would savor the serious moments so they could really hit home. It would the kind of book that fully immerses readers into the world it creates \u2013 with characters you hate to love and love to hate. I dunno, that\u2019s the kind of book\u00a0I\u00a0<\/em>would want to read!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any fond memories of 481 Main Street you want to share?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I took Religion in Japan, Professor Borchert had optional movie showings on a few weekends over the semester \u2013 I remember being the only student to show up to watch Okuribito<\/em> with him and it was just really chill and nice to hang out and eat popcorn while watching this movie on a cloudy afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a million of my favorite conversations with Professor Brennan in her office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And being surrounded by coffee and donuts on finals weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re finishing up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tell us something about that experience\u2014bonus points for including religion or the Religion Department as a way to think about it!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was absolutely terrible!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I remember the religion classes I took sophomore year so vividly and having \u201cAh-Ha\u201d moments almost every day. I felt almost like I\u00a0had\u00a0to become a religion major because studying religion makes me excited and engaged in ways no other subject … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33374,110219],"tags":[642830,112833,417,395783,137641,642832],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-student-blog","tag-class-of-2021","tag-majors","tag-religion","tag-senior-spotlight","tag-seniors","tag-uvm2021"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4woDM-lv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1335,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}