I spoke a great deal about this in my learning statement so I will do my best to not say exactly the same thing, but this is a very important inflection point in my life so I feel it deserves the time. I have Social Anxiety Disorder which leads me to have great difficulty getting myself out there and as a result I had tremendous challenges navigating the large college experience and the onset of COVID only exacerbated this stress. When I returned to school from home I thought long and hard about the various different things I could do that would help me to maximize the most of college given the previous two years had been marred for a number of reasons. I have always been a passionate sports fan and so I went through every possible opportunity that could put me closer to field and meet like minded people. This lead me to reach out directly the head cheer coach, among others, to see what was possible and he ended up telling me that try outs for Harry The Husky were happening the next day.

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At first I was ambivalent to the idea as I am not comfortable being in front of one person let alone a whole stadium, but I stuck it through and went to audition and apparently the powers that be saw something in me that they liked. This propelled me to have the confidence in myself to continue on and eventually I became a member of the team and was even named mascot of the year for 2022-2023. Not only was this a great community building experience for me but served an integral role in almost a therapeutic regimen. One of my biggest problems is thinking too much about what other people think but when I put on that suit I become someone else and can do whatever I want free of judgment and I have tried to practice this until it becomes second nature and happens even when I am just me.

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I would have been fine if the only things I got from being Harry was what I just discussed but it gets even better. I was able to travel on several occasions to various sporting events to represent UW and since our Football team performed so well I was selected to go to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio as well as the Apple Cup in Pullman, both of which we won and became life changing experiences for me. I was also able to go to Las Vegas to support the Women's Basketball team at the Pac-12 tournament where I was able to meet all of the other Pac-12 Mascots and felt a tremendous sense of community and shared value. All in all this thing that I didn't even consider possible ended up being one of the single most fulfilling experiences of my life.