Word from the Real World: Marcelo Triana

Grey seats and black chalkboards covered the rooms. As students made the room look whole, a fluffy haired dog named Tilly ran into the room. Sitting in Introduction to Sociology, Professor Dunbar Moodie’s South African accent captured the attention of indolent students. We quickly learned of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo’s experiments on people’s blind obedience of authority in correlation to greater societal teachings. As class ended I began to feel an intense pain in my stomach. I rushed to congregate with my friends for lunch. Sharp jabs of jovial humor filled our conversation. Listening to my friend, I could not help but laugh at her theory of how to make fun of someone, “It’s a five step program, step one is recognizing and step two, three, four and five are cuttin’ a*#.” Later that day I was forced to think about a moral conundrum. If five spelunkers are trapped in a landslide, run out of food and kill one of their own to survive, are the four spelunkers justified? Crime and Punishment provided an interesting outlook on the moral philosophy of law. With a deep-raspy voice, Professor Scott Brophy illustrated how and why at times ones actions can be justified, excused or simply wrong. With extreme fascination I listened to the philosophical reasoning behind the laws ability to achieve possible verdicts. Days later, Professor Passavant’s creative lecture on Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish opened my eyes to the fact that punishment for crimes used to be a way for the sovereign to display and reassert power instead of creating a system of law and order.
Looking through the course catalogue with friends, I later thought, “Yo, I think I might double major in Poli Sci and Philosophy!” With response of “you’re crazy”, I couldn’t help but find both subjects enthralling.
A weary school week came to a close as class had ended and there was no work left to finish. Wishing I could simply rest, I had a mandatory prospective Residential Assistant meeting from six to nine o’clock. My desire to be an RA quickly overcame my sluggishness. In three hours the Office of Residential Education asked to us to answer: What are the qualities that make an excellent RA? The unanimous response became: responsible, diverse, well informed, motivated and understanding.