A liberal arts education means skills for lifelong learning and lifelong success. Although I mostly go about my life not thinking about how every little thing leads me to a moment in time--and to the next one and the next one--I need not falter for I am equipped to take on whatever comes my way.

Born to Thai immigrants, I grappled with differences in culture from my heritage and where I live, and I constantly had to deal with conversations related to my heritage, needing to explain and needing to be informed. My parents could only explain so much to me in Thai and English, but it was no't the language barrier that was the issue. It was my lack of understanding and perspective about culture in general to have mutually constructive conversations regarding it. I had not developed the rights skills and mindset until I matriculated at MTSU.

From 2015-2019, I studied Spanish as an undergraduate because I was exposed to it in high school and had great teachers who pushed students to continue to pursue a world language. It was different than Thai. I didn't have to learn it like I did Thai, but it was my choice to study Spanish. At first, I liked learning about Spanish and Latin American cultures, they were what I was used to learning about and experiencing. However, I fell in love with Spanish literature--from poetry to lengthy novels--with the amazing variety of thought-provoking writers. Reading Spanish literature challenged my understanding of the world and helped shape my perspective of culture in general. I cultivated my critical thinking, communication, and my global/intercultural awareness through my education. Now, I could more appropriately engage in conversations regarding culture with others, and I had greater confidence in myself to be immersed in cultures different from my own.

In 2024, I became a temporary monk per Thai tradition to honor my parents for raising me. My body, my mind, and my soul were tested against how I was raised and who I became. For seven days, I lived, studied, and worked at Wat Lao Buddharam in Murfreesboro, TN. I had to learn Pali, an old language spoken by Theravada Buddhists and found in the Pali Canon; I served the local Lao and Thai community; and I deepened my own spiritual understanding--although I am not religious. I achieved a greater understanding of and greater respect for Thai culture through my time as a monk.

Without my liberal arts education, I would not have been prepared to honor my parents and my Thai heritage in the US. I wouldn't have been able to go through a significant personal event in my life that called upon my whole being to fulfill. An experience does not end with an event, it only matures with the passage of time into wisdom, and thankfully, I have my liberal arts skills to grow with the experience for the rest of my life and the ones after.