Hey y’all! My name is Pete and I’m planning on majoring in Civil Engineering. I am 19 years old, a Freshman here at Boise State, and without further adieu here is a little about me!

• Where did you grow up, and how did that place, as well as the people around you, influence you? I grew up in Boise first for 6 years, then Mountain Home for 4 years, then Prairie for 6 years. I was influenced in Mountain Home by friends, sports, school, my parents, family members, etc. I became very interested in sports such as football, baseball, wrestling, basketball, soccer, etc. My mom was the receptionist at Hacker Middle School in Mountain Home as well so I was really involved with the Middle School and helped out at many events, helped teachers, knew a lot of the teaching staff, etc. I learned some hard lessons after being curious about what my friends were talking about in school such as adult content, etc. which also helped to influence me to change those actions. When my family moved to Prairie I became much less involved with my influences from Mountain Home, because it is a very small town up in the mountains located about 50 miles from Mountain Home and Boise. I learned hard work ethics from working on our family ranch up there, such as never giving up on a task, working till the job is done, working with cows and horses, building and fixing barbed wire fences, digging ditches, bucking/ feeding hay, etc. I also became very involved in my community and helped many people in Prairie with any job they asked me to help with, and I did so without expecting pay. I earned a good reputation as a hard worker and a good kid in Prairie and that has helped me to see myself as successful and ready to tackle any obstacle that comes my way.
• What kinds of books or other texts did you read in school? On your own? The books I have read in school are The Old Man and the Sea, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, A great book about President James Madison, and some other good ones that I can’t really remember the name of. I have read books on my own such as the Cirque Du Freak series, Old Yeller, When the Whistle Blows, some Gary Paulsen books, many of the Goosebumps series and other R.L. Stine series books, books about sports, historical and historical fictions books, etc.
• Where (e.g., specific website, television news channels, friends and family, church, etc.) do you learn about what’s going on in the U.S. and the rest of the world? I learn about what is going on in the U.S. and the rest of the world through family, friends, the news, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, etc.
• How do you spend your leisure time, and how might it shape your view of the world? I spend my leisure time relaxing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, going home to my family on the weekends and helping/hanging out, and also hanging out with friends. These activities might shape my view of the world by showing me how much more we have to enjoy in the U.S. such as freedom, much less hunger, less poverty (for the most part), more leisure/recreation, etc. than in other parts of the world. I also feel like we might take it for granted because most of us grew up with a lot and never knew what it meant to be poor, or have to grow up with little material possessions.
• How has your religious or spiritual journey influenced how you view other people and their decisions? Yes I am a Christian but I wouldn’t consider myself to be religious per say because I don’t follow a certain religion. I would say that being a Christian I view other people and their decisions with both sides in mind. I don’t try to judge anybody by my first impression of them, I look at their good and bad, I don’t point out every little thing that somebody does that I consider to be wrong, and I am very polite and considerate of other people. I am a firm believer in the golden rule, “Do unto others as you want done unto you.” I am respectful, caring, honest, and many other good traits.
• Did your parents or guardians come from different cultures? If so, how did these cultures appear in your home when you were growing up? No, my parents didn’t come from different cultures. My mother and father both grew up in Idaho from families within the U.S.
• How has your perspective on the world changed as you have matured and gained more life experience? My perspective on the world has changed as I have matured and gained more life experience by I now see things that I didn’t know of or see much before such as heated topics on same sex marriage, gun control laws, abortion, U.S. involved wars, celebrity scandals, world events, mass shootings, local, state, and nationwide elections, videos on the internet, etc. I now see the world in a much broader view and I have my own thoughts and ideas on issues that didn’t matter to me when I was younger. I pay attention to major issues now and I have opinions on these issues.
• What specific experiences—e.g., events, conversations, chance meetings, courses, etc.—have made you shift your perspective or change your mind about something? I would say that my sociology class that I took last year in high school definitely made me think differently about certain subjects and topics in the world. I learned about how we are shaped as an individual, certain factors that influence our behavior, how a good person can do bad things, how solitary confinement is probably not a good solution to handle criminals, and many other very important thoughts and ideas.

Are there people or experiences that you consider formative in your life—that is, they are or were essential to shaping the person you are today? Explain. My Mom, Dad, Grandpa Nathan, Grandma Mary, Grandpa Pete, Abuela Reyes, Great-Grandma Priscilla, Granny Black, Uncle Luther, and a few other people were all very essential to shaping the person I am today because I have learned all that I know from each and every one of these people.

My name is Lauren Martins, I am from Danville, Ca (East Bay Area), and I am a freshman here at Boise State, majoring in Illustration. I grew up in a town that we like to call a “bubble” because its different from the outside world. It is the epitome of a suburb and there is rarely anything fun to do in the town itself. Growing up there made me realize how much more there is to learn and experience from the world, which made me want to go to school somewhere out of state. I have read many books over the years both in school and on my own. My favorites from high school are To Kill a Mockingbird and Tuesdays with Morrie, and my favorite books overall are The Lovely Bones and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I usually find out about what’s going on in the world by friends or the news. In my free time I usually read, draw, hang out with friends or watch TV. My parents come from a lot different cultures but I’ll mainly identify as Italian (Mom) and Portuguese (Dad), because of this I’ve grown up eating a lot of pasta and having a lot of cousins, many of whom I’ve never met. I think one of the biggest things about growing up is being able to understand what is going on in the world around you, and formulate your own ideas based on the events that occur. Until this point, I sort of just agreed and believed what was said around me or told to me, and it wasn’t until the end of middle school that I would think to myself  “I don’t agree with that,” when my parents said something. My junior year of high school I joined a program called Youth and Government. The entirety of the program is super complicated to explain, but it essentially helped me know the major issues in the world, in our country, or even just in the state of California, and helped me to formulate my own opinions and debate them. This program helped me realize my political affiliation as well as topics that I am very passionate about, and will absolutely debate about if someone brings the topic to light. Other than Youth and Government having a huge impact on my life, my Great Grandma has too. I didn’t know her very well, and I only have two real memories of her, because she died right before 7th grade. However, from what I have been told about her, we were a lot a like. My parents will always get the occasional question “where did she (me) get her artistic ability?” and they’ll always say from my Great Grandma. She is the only person I personally have known to have put her life into her art. She didn’t do anything else, and she’s inspired me to do the same thing and pursue what I love to do, hence me being an illustration major. So that’s essentially me!