School: School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts and School of Arts and Sciences
Degree: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studio Art and Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology
What’s one thing that you’ll always remember from Tufts?
One thing I’ll always remember happened during my first year: I took a ceramics class, and, to celebrate the end of it, we made food in the kilns. We cooked chicken, and the professor, Michael Barsanti, made pasta. And people brought other food, too, so it was a feast. But the best part? We got to eat it all out of stuff that we’d made over the semester. We tested out how our designs worked—and it was delicious and fun at the same time.
What’s one class you think every Tufts student should take?
The End of Work in the United States. It changed the way I think about productivity and why and how we’ve come to have the work ethic that we do in the United States. It also made me see how being a worker gives people the potential to organize and maybe even change some imperfect systems that we live under. It was fascinating, and when I think about how I’m going to plan the future, I go back to that class and revisit the things I learned.
What’s your favorite place on campus?
I have come to love the woodshop. It’s one of the sculpture studios to which the School of the Museum of Fine Arts offers access, and it has a great range of equipment, from hand tools to machinery. I’m a student worker there, so I spend 10 to 14 hours a week in that space, either for my job or to make progress on my own projects. It’s fun, because I’ve seen it transform a lot since I started in my first year, as it’s gone through different managers and physical forms. One summer I even helped take down a bunch of old cabinets and revamp it into a much more usable space. Participating in the transformation process made me see it in a new way. Also, there’s beautiful light in there, so it’s perfect for making things—or even just for having a moment.
This profile originally appeared as part of the series “Profiles in Inspiration: Commencement 2022 Spotlights."
