"Fill it with everything you want to say" - Jessica Vazquez shares senior reflection

At the College of Arts and Sciences Celebration of Excellence, senior Jessica Vazquez shared her experience as a quadruple-major, DACA recipient, traveler, and Thompson scholar Her advice for her fellow students? "Create and share your own story," she said. "Fill it with everything that you want to say." The transcript of her speech is below.

Hi. My name is Jessica Vazquez, and I was given the opportunity to represent the Humanities. I am currently a senior, majoring in English, French, Spanish, and Film Studies. The honor that was bestowed upon me has to do a little bit with the range that I have within the college and that has given me the opportunity to really get to explore every facet of the Humanities, exploring everything from Film Studies with our wonderful staff, through the English Department and then through Modern Languages.

I came to the United States when I was 12 years old. My Freshman year here at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, I was given the opportunity to become a DACA recipient, which was the program that President Obama put in place back in 2012. Through this program, I was given the opportunity to apply and receive a scholarship to go study in France for a full semester, which I did last year. And it was just such an enriching and wonderful opportunity to get to see, not just the perspective from the United States and Nebraska, but also from France, and expand my world knowlege.

I can not thank you enough for all of the support that has been given to me, through Humanities Department. All of the wonderful professors, all of the wonderful advisors, the Honors Program, the William Thompson Community, and It's just been such a fulfilling experience. Because what makes Humanities so wonderful is that you are given the opportunity to think for yourself, to explore the world via all of the wonderful books and stories of other people, but to create and shape your own story, and to just, fill it with everything that you want to say. And I think, the humanities has seen through. In my opinion, in this university it's taken very seriously, which is something that I found very rewarding. It's been an amazing journey. And in fact it has been so great that I am staying a fifth year to finish my program, and enjoy another year in the Humanities.

So that's a little bit of my senior reflection. Anybody in the Humanities: good choice.

Thank you.