Lukas Illa
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Learning Statement I was confident in my route of intellectual pursuit and academic focus when I stepped onto campus in the autumn of 2019. How wrong I was! As I began to become disillusioned and disappointed with my chosen academic department, I increased my involvement with anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movement building. I started scrutinizing every element of scholastic offering, understanding that learning of human rights in a well-protected and disassociated Ivory Tower was doing nothing for the material needs of the people on the ground. My weekly assignments, group projects, and final papers all found ways to target the very university—and the racial capitalist system it aids and abets—providing me the opportunity to conduct my studies. But I don’t see this as a weakness or a slap in the face of UW; I understand that the university will never willingly teach me the ways to demolish its foundations as an asset and supplier to an unequal and exploitative capitalist system.
My Honors journey has provided me the valuable opportunities to take courses that allow me to speak more candidly about these connections, as well as served as a means to think more holistically of the ways in which all academic fields at the university are implicated in this legitimatization. After reading my portfolio, I hope you will take away that I have used my experience at the UW to learn of the access points to penetrate bureaucratic systems of oppression; to find and expose the contradictions in the university’s stated mission; and to implore my fellow students to harness our degree, and therefore our social capital, to fight against these systems. My chosen classes, the experiential learning activities, and extra curriculars exhibit that commitment, and I hope that this portfolio will serve as a testament to my continued and future commitments to aid in the collective struggle against elite and classist institutions who attempt to gatekeep access and knowledge. |