For whatever reason, I have been forced to live the majority of my life with crippling social anxiety with years of therapy to prove it. As such, my experience getting dropped into the deep end of social interactions, which some people refer to as college, was my worst nightmare come to life leaving me feeling simultaneously isolated and petrified to meet new people, then the pandemic came. This provided for me a sense of respite from the herculean task of making friends and getting to return to the comfort and safety of home. While this was true, I also was full of regret that I was not able to put myself out there and have the college experience that everyone longs to get back to once they have left it. During my junior year, once I had returned back to campus, I racked my brain for weeks attempting to devise a way to get the most out of my time at UW and break out of the self perpetuating cycle that I had been living in for longer than I care to admit. This search had led to numerous dead ends, unreturned emails, and no new experiences. I did, however, get one response back.

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In my crusade of breaking free from the comfort prison of my own design I cold emailed the head of the UW spirit team to see if they had any opportunities to Harry the Husky. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it would actually come to fruition so I wasn’t worried about the outcome one way or the other. Then I went in to interview/audition and apparently I was good enough for the powers that be to give me a shot. Who would think that a person with social anxiety disorder would put themselves out there to the point of being in front of thousands of people and interacting with hundreds on a daily basis, I sure didn’t. But in reality, this experience and the many that I have had subsequently I have tried to frame as a form of therapy for myself. While Merrick Studer is neurotically self conscious and worried about what everyone thinks of him at every moment, no one knows who is inside Harry the Husky so if he makes a fool of himself who cares? This idea allows me to be fully myself and be carefree and I have been trying to extrapolate this same philosophy to my everyday life in a dance like no one is watching mentality. So I would say that one of the many inflection points in my life is becoming the UW mascot.

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While it may appear incredibly cliche and something out of a fiction, my college experience is likely similar to how a large percentage of people feel. I made myself go through the thing I fear the most in this world, going in front of strangers to be actively judged, and I was accepted for who I was and came through on the other side better for it. Almost in John Hughes movie fashion, I have been able to navigate the challenges that life has thrown my way with the use of one of the most out of the ordinary methods possible, but it is able to provide a succinct message to take away and be utilized by anyone who has felt similar, of which there are many.