{"id":1337,"date":"2021-05-11T11:02:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T15:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2021-05-11T11:02:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T15:02:54","slug":"senior-spotlight-a-series-on-our-graduating-students-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/2021\/05\/11\/senior-spotlight-a-series-on-our-graduating-students-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Spotlight: a series on our graduating students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>In ten years I imagine myself as a middle or high school teacher teaching social studies. There are so many things I wish I was taught in middle\/high school that I didn\u2019t learn about until college. We can\u2019t dismantle corrupt systems until we know about them and how they function &#8211; so it\u2019s better to start that work as early as possible.\u00a0<\/p><cite>&#8211; lexie drew &#8217;21<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-450x300.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Lexie Drew &#8217;21<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why did you major in Religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My freshman year first semester class schedule was done for me by someone in CAS. I was randomly placed in Professor Morgenstein Fuerst\u2019s \u201cComparing Religions\u201d class and absolutely loved it. I remember leaving every class feeling like my brain was exploding and growing! I just kept thinking about the discussions, information, and questions that were brought up in each class. I was learning so much and having a lot of fun and so I just kept sneakily signing up for REL classes each semester.\u00a0\u00a0Because I didn\u2019t want to go without one, I eventually added it as my minor. Last semester, Professor Borchert and I realized I was only 8 credits away from a major and I decided to go for it. I am so happy I did and feel so proud to be a Religion major.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Where do you imagine yourself in 10 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In ten years I imagine myself as a middle or high school teacher teaching social studies. There are so many things I wish I was taught in middle\/high school that I didn\u2019t learn about until college. We can\u2019t dismantle corrupt systems until we know about them and how they function &#8211; so it\u2019s better to start that work as early as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Imagine a first-year student has asked your advice about REL courses. What\u2019s the one she&nbsp;shouldn\u2019t&nbsp;dream about missing? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh my, what a tough question. I think all Religion classes are amazing (like actually I am not kidding), so any and all! But these were my favorite:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>Islam &amp; Modernity<\/em>: I loved constantly trying to answer the question of \u201cwhat is modernity?\u201d and we read some really great books such as \u201cPious Fashion.\u201d\u00a0<\/li><li><em>Religion and Ways of Knowing<\/em> Loved the books we read and it really expanded my knowledge in terms of the embodiment of religion and how religious meaning is created and found.\u00a0<\/li><li><em>Seeing the Sacred<\/em>: Love the focus of visuality and the senses. Studying Religion by focusing on the body has taught me so much about how it functions.<\/li><li><em>Religious Literacy<\/em>: I just feel like this is a really great class to take to understand how important it is to know about religion as it is literally everywhere.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you could write any book, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;How to get the confidence to raise your hand!\u201d Or something about a friendship between a turtle and a dog. Still deciding between the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Any fond memories of 481 Main Street you want to share?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gathering around the table in \u201cReligion and Ways of Knowing.\u201d It was so small and intimate. I felt so free to be speak, question, and wonder in that atmosphere. It\u2019s cool to talk about humans and the human experience while being close to other humans! I think it helps things make more sense. That was one of my last classes before COVID.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>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<p>Things and people adapt under ever-changing circumstances. Religious communities are made up of people and so it makes sense that these communities change and shift based on particular contexts. Also, despite not being together physically, I still learned a lot virtually and was like seriously always in my pajamas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2017\/04\/Religion@UVM-02-723x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-699\" width=\"248\" height=\"372\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In ten years I imagine myself as a middle or high school teacher teaching social studies. There are so many things I wish I was taught in middle\/high school that I didn\u2019t learn about until college. We can\u2019t dismantle corrupt &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/2021\/05\/11\/senior-spotlight-a-series-on-our-graduating-students-4\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":1339,"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":[122522,417,395783,137641,642831,642832],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-student-blog","tag-graduation","tag-religion","tag-senior-spotlight","tag-seniors","tag-uvm-2021","tag-uvm2021"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/files\/2021\/05\/senior-spotlight-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4woDM-lz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","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=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}