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Together Apart: Freshman Colloquium

Panel 1: Personal Narrative and the World / Feeding the Self

The personal narratives of this panel consider the material and immaterial nourishment that we need to live. Their accounts take us across time as well as across the world—from Peru to upstate New York to postwar Vietnam and Penang, Malaysia. Through memories and first-hand experience, they show us how we can build resilience, identity, and sustainability through a life lived in balance—with others as much as with our environment and home. --S. T.

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Contents of this path:

Contents of this path:

By Eytan Yoles Stanton

Prior to attending USC, I took a gap year to pursue my interest in regenerative agriculture and environmental design. After working in various alternative agricultural operations I gained insight into the challenges and goals of instituting a regenerative framework for human land-based relationships. On one farm, I learned about Permaculture as one alternative for holistic and sustainable land management. On another farm, I was often challenged or looked down upon for my beliefs. In this scholarly personal narrative, I present why I still believe that Permaculture must be the future of agriculture.
By Yee Young Cher (YY)

My work is a creative piece based on DJ Waldie's Holy Land. In my GESM 120 class LA stories with Christopher Edward Freeman, I aim to emulate Waldie' style of using stories, statistics, and photos to bring the reader closer into the world of LA and its history, and here I am doing the same but for my hometown of Penang, Malaysia. I included personal stories, Malay words, more serious topics, and a general mix of what constitutes my hometown. It is essentially a small but meaningful sample of my life in Penang, made for presentation to someone who is unfamiliar with Penang or Malaysia as a whole.
By Brandon Tran

A letter from my forty-year-old self from the year 2042 addressed to my eighteen-year-old self in the year 2020 right now. In it, future me offers solicitude and support to get through this current pandemic (and all-around difficult year) by offering a story with common underlying themes. The story is essentially a true retelling of my parents’ life and a bit of my own -- from their disadvantaged and impoverished upbringing in the slums of postwar Vietnam to me now attending one of the top schools in the United States on a scholarship. Future me wraps up the letter by applying the themes of my parents' story and my own to the broader tale of humanity -- themes like family, community, hope, and persistence. I postulate that the will to persist is not just a feel-good sentiment. It's a responsibility we have to ourselves and each other. And through that responsibility, we unlock the courage to turn hardship into story, just like this letter does.