Everyone at Whitman has a story to tell, how they got here and what happened once they did. And every story is different. This is Our Whitman, My Story. Hi, I'm Genevieve Vogel. I'm originally from Brunswick, Maine. I'm a student here at Whitman studying history and economics. I picked Whitman because I wanted some place that was a bit more relaxed than some of the East Coast schools I looked at. I've been living on the East Coast for quite a while. I moved to Maine when I was 10 and I wanted something a bit different. It can be a bit more of a competitive cut throat atmosphere I found on the East Coast, and I was hoping for something more relaxed and more supportive on the West Coast. And I feel like I want also a more adventurous, like change of scenery and something where I could be on my own and branch out.
When I was looking at schools, I really wanted to pick somewhere that would be a good fit, and I was obviously very nervous. I mean, it can be really a daunting choice to make, because you want to find some place where you can grow as a person, but also feel like you're taking a risk a bit. And so I went about researching schools on the East Coast and I wasn't really excited by what I was finding. And I went online. I looked at Whitman's website and pretty, pretty quickly I was really just engaged by the kind of content that they were showing and how involved everyone seemed to be and how much they loved being here.
I think college kind of snuck up on me because you always know like, "Hey, I think I want to go to college," but the idea kind of felt foreign to me. And so I slowly started doing research about schools. My parents had some ideas, but I was looking for some place that was affordable that would be also a good fit to what I wanted. And there's not really that many affordable options I was finding in my research. And what I really appreciate about Whitman is they have like an online calculator to see the tuition price. And I was able to figure out that maybe this would be a good option for me.
So I started my college education online because of the pandemic in the fall of my freshman year. I took this really great class on US and Latin American history, and it really exposed me to a new area of history I hadn't thought about before. I've always loved history in high school, especially, I took a few classes and really loved them, but I never thought about imperialism in the kind of ways that this class challenged me to think about it. And we had really great discussions. My professor is an expert in the field and he always kept us engaged and really took the time to listen to our ideas and make sure that we were having really meaningful discussions that weren't just lecture-based.
Because of COVID and different financial considerations, it wasn't really possible for me to come visit Whitman before I decided to come here. I did apply early decision because I just knew from my research and from talking to the college representative at the college fair that this was a really good opportunity and I didn't want to miss it because I was scared or because I wasn't brave enough to do it. So I went for it. I decided to apply early decision because I fell in love with the programs. I fell in love with the people I talked to, and everyone here has really proved that it was a good choice for me.
But it was scary, I wasn't... I had no idea really what I was walking into because yes, I researched. So I knew on paper what to expect, but being some place is a different experience. And it was really exhilarating to come off the plane in Walla Walla and see the mountains in the distance and feel like, "Whoa, this is a real place." I'm actually here for the first time, and it feels real, and it feels good. I felt so happy to be here. It felt like such a relief because I had this idea on paper and I wasn't quite sure how it would come together and life, and it really has come together. I'm really happy to be here and very thankful
The freshman dorms were so much fun. I met some great people. They do a really good job sorting people into the dorms. I was in Anderson Hall, which is next to Cleveland, right next to the dining hall. It's quite, I would say, the crunchy social dorm, many kind of artist types and musician types who want to talk. And that got me out of my comfort zone a bit to be around those kind of extroverted type people. But I think that was really helpful in the long run for getting me involved in the campus community.
I feel like research is kind of the theme of my life because I love to just... I'm a very curious person and love to research possibilities. Now that I'm at Whitman I've been able to look at those opportunities. Like I work in the college archives here. I'm an archive student assistant, and I help archive materials and learn about their history. My economics advisor opened up an opportunity for her advisees to come talk every Friday afternoon about different kinds of research we would like to do if we had the opportunity to do so. And so it was just a fun way to talk about things that we are curious about and think about ways that economics could be useful, just the kind of problems that we see in the world. I'm interested in having more women on the boards of different S&P 500-type companies, major companies in the United States, and trying to figure out why is it that we have fewer women on those boards, and why are we just now reaching a point where we have some gender diversity?
So that's a project that I'm personally interested in, and I hope to do a future in my education and take the skills I learned here at Whitman to kind of answer that problem. There's also another girl who's researching salmon and basically trying to quantify the price of a salmon, like its price and the ecology of the rivers. So lots of different questions here. And my professor is very open to hearing our thoughts, even if we're not economists or we're not even like, not knowledgeable about economics yet. She wanted to hear about what kind of things we care about.
I want to share with you that I get to outside of class, Whitman Investment company, Whitman Votes, and exploring Outdoors. I'm currently the CEO of Whitman Investment Company. And what we do there is we help manage a portion of the endowment. And we also do educational presentations and have guest speakers. So what we do is we go through a portfolio, we hold things like Apple or Microsoft, and then we decide if we want to sell or buy different stocks. And the students, we make the presentations and we make the stock pitches and the investment decisions with our 1.7 million dollars of the investment in the portfolio for the endowment. I was super surprised that we had this opportunity because it's not very often that you get to have real-world experience in college with that much kind of money and wealth. And it's really great that Whitman has offered this opportunity for students to have a hands-on environment to work with money.
Whitman Votes is a voter advocacy club on campus here, and we do events. We try and gauge a student's interest in voting and try and support their voting lives here at Whitman. I'm currently the co-president of Whitman Votes. And so that means I manage our events, manage our meetings. We recently had a documentary film night where we watched a film and had some cookies and talked about how we feel about politics right now. And it's quite a social club, but we also try and think of ways to be inspired, to be politically active.
Being at Whitman I've met some really great people who have shown me that I can be adventurous and that they'll support me in all of those adventurous things I try to do. And so recently I went snowshoeing with some friends up in the Blue Mountains, which is a really good time. I hadn't really been out in the wilderness of sorts ever. So that was also really kind of scary, but an exciting part of it was just being in pure nature.
And then another few weekends ago, I went skiing for the first time at Bluewood Resort, which is like an hour from campus. And I hadn't skied before, so that quite exciting. I did not do very well, but I really appreciated my friends for being there for me and people encouraging me to try new things. I've absolutely become way more adventurous since coming to college. I think mainly just because I'm with the right people now, and I'm in an environment that feels supportive to me, and I feel like I can be myself here. So I've definitely felt the shift in my personal being, since being here I feel like I'm constantly evolving.
I think anyone can do well at Whitman, but I think it's really helpful to come in with the mindset of openness and wanting to try new things and talking to people who maybe you wouldn't talk to usually, and just being friendly. People here are very friendly. And so coming with a good attitude is I think a must. Whitman has been such a great part of my life. I am so thankful for it. I'm really glad I took the chance because sometimes it may feel comfortable to go someplace near home, or maybe it feels comfortable to do maybe what your parents are telling you to do. But when you do your own research and take initiative in your life, it can really pay off. So, that's what I'd say, is take initiative, and this is your life now and you can choose what you want to do with it. So now that you're becoming an adult, go for it. I'm Genevieve, and this has been Our Whitman, My Story. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.
Music for this episode provided by the band, Wind up Birds, which is made up entirely of current Whitman College students.
