Episode 10 Reflection

Andrew Lai

I was glad to hear about Kimi’s experiences in life and about the path she chose to go down by attending West Point. I am interested in alternatives to college and seeing them through the perspective of someone who was a student like myself who took that opportunity. I agree with her advice to learn how to sell myself as well as to work hard when someone pushes me. I enjoyed hearing about the types of training and experiences Kimi had as they differ from that of a more typical college. I agreed that attending a regular college may provide more freedom/flexibility. I was glad to hear that calculus was very useful in college as it’s a subject I enjoy in school and enjoy learning about. I was glad to hear more general advice about life as well.

Robert Meza

In episode 10, we meet Kimi Walker and she talks about her experience in west point, with the highlight being why choosing West Point and such. At the end of her high school career, she would be applying for multiple colleges like West Point and SDSU. Her reason to go to West Point was that she wanted to go to a service academy. Once entering West Point she would experience many things that regular college students wouldn’t go through like discipline and workouts and such. With this, it was shown that West Point was meant for people to enter the military and such, meaning that your freedom will be lessened. Although West Point was a really good school, I don’t think that school or any service academy’s interest me as I don’t have an interest in the military. But this episode did help a lot in showing that when applying for colleges, not only you have to know what you want to do whether it’s leaning towards the military or not, but you also need to sell yourself and make yourself appealing towards others to gain these opportunities.

Faith Shin

In this episode of the Symposium Series with Kimi, I was able to look into the life of a West point student. I learned that going to a regular college gives you more freedom and that ROTC has more freedom and for service academies, you have to be all in. When she said that college was a really long four years, I think I sort of got what reality was. I also took in to mind her thoughts that things aren't as big of a deal as they seem in the moment. I think that she's right and it made me think that I shouldn't take this time for granted and work harder so I could limit the stress I face in my future. I figured that Calculus was really helpful as many people seemed to emphasize this. I also learned something that I should do in interviews or in college apps: to sell oneself. Finally as a junior, I realized that I would soon get ready to ponder on the next steps for my life.