I Should Have Known

Abstract

When I applied to the Honors Program, I saw it as an opportunity. It was an opportunity for me to look back, after I finished my college experience, and be able to say that I accomplished something. For the most part, I see my college experience as taking a bunch of classes and simply getting a grade to show for it. Semester after semester it's been that way. I think most students would agree with me. I saw being in the Honors program as something that would take me out of that monotonous, college student existence. As an English major, I liked to write and face the challenges that writing presented to me. Unfortunately, I was mostly writing for other people, namely professors. I was basically writing what I thought they wanted to hear. Fortunately, it wasn't always like this. After taking a few creative writing and poetry classes, I longed to create something myself, for myself. Writing my Honors thesis gave me this opportunity I was looking for. Reading work from other local writers such as Lois-Ann Yamanaka, which I had the pleasure of taking a class for, helped me search for that local voice which I longed to express. I never had the opportunity to express myself that way before while reading and writing about ''long-dead white guys" in most of my English classes.