Student Reflection: Patrick Schmidt

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05/18/2022 Added

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Senior Patrick Schmidt (political science) shared his experience at the college's Celebration of Excellence.

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[00:00:03.003]Good evening, everyone.
[00:00:03.870]It's an honor to be here with you tonight to celebrate
[00:00:06.206]the College of Arts and Sciences and all my wonderful
[00:00:09.442]fellow students and graduates that are here tonight.
[00:00:13.246]So I arrived here in fall 2018 as a pretty shy kid from from Minnesota.
[00:00:18.585]I didn't know anyone here.
[00:00:20.787]And as was mentioned earlier, I'm a member of the drumline.
[00:00:23.556]So I showed up ten days early for band camp when there was nobody on campus.
[00:00:27.794]And I kind of had to figure it out.
[00:00:29.529]I was alone in my dorm with a bunch of new people who I'd never met before.
[00:00:33.666]And so I came in navigating that.
[00:00:36.970]I was really afraid of professors, you know, coming to college.
[00:00:39.506]One of the things they say is get to talk to your professors.
[00:00:42.509]Well, 120 person lectures. That's not an easy thing to do.
[00:00:45.945]It took me a while,
[00:00:48.248]and I'm happy to say that I've been able to be more comfortable with that
[00:00:52.252]as I've gone on through my career in the College of Arts and Sciences.
[00:00:56.222]I came in as a history and French major because those are two things
[00:00:58.858]that I like studying in high school. I was good at them,
[00:01:01.761]but that changed pretty quickly.
[00:01:03.096]I took POLS 160, which is the introductory level political science class
[00:01:06.933]in international relations.
[00:01:08.068]My freshman year and I changed majors that same semester,
[00:01:12.272]so I was pretty quick turnaround for me.
[00:01:14.340]The professors in the international relations program at UNL
[00:01:16.876]pushed me to get involved very quickly,
[00:01:18.545]and not just in international relations, but in poli sci as a whole.
[00:01:21.815]That first looked like me getting involved as a legislative page
[00:01:25.552]at the Nebraska legislature, which is a fantastic opportunity
[00:01:28.988]that's allowed me to make a lot of great friends and coworkers
[00:01:32.392]and even better classmates like my friend Kennedy Zuroff, who is here tonight,
[00:01:36.529]as well as pushing me to apply for other internships
[00:01:39.833]such as the one I had with the US Department of State in the spring of 2020.
[00:01:44.871]In the midst of spring of 2021, excuse me, in the midst of COVID,
[00:01:49.509]where I was able to speak with members of the State Department
[00:01:54.247]as well as of foreign governments virtually through Zoom, of course,
[00:01:58.051]and where I was also able to write a climate change report on Monaco
[00:02:02.989]and do a bunch of other stuff that I felt was very beneficial for my career
[00:02:06.759]and for the advancement of the US Department of State and the US as a whole.
[00:02:12.232]Now that I've kind of talked about some of the stuff that I've got involved
[00:02:14.300]in, I want to transition to what everybody else has talked about,
[00:02:18.371]the professors here in the College of Arts
[00:02:19.672]and Sciences and how beneficial they are.
[00:02:22.742]There's such a wide variety of opportunities with professors
[00:02:25.845]as well as fantastic individuals themselves to get involved with.
[00:02:30.250]Whether that's my history professor that I had last semester, Dr.
[00:02:33.253]Coble, who's been teaching about China here since before I was born,
[00:02:37.090]or my French professor this semester, Dr.
[00:02:39.559]Stump, who just received an award for Creative Arts
[00:02:43.029]and is a fantastic translator, whether that's
[00:02:47.300]the director of the National Security Studies Program here at UNL, Dr.
[00:02:50.203]Tyler White, who paused class in the middle of this semester
[00:02:53.339]to take two weeks to talk about Ukraine
[00:02:55.074]because it was just pertinent to what we were doing.
[00:02:57.777]Whether that's Dr.
[00:02:58.478]Robert Schub, who I took a class with last semester entitled U.S.
[00:03:02.715]Foreign Policy and Military Intervention,
[00:03:04.951]who was a reference for me on my applications for grad school
[00:03:08.121]and for whom I currently do a bunch of research.
[00:03:09.989]So I'm incredibly grateful to the fantastic faculty of the College
[00:03:13.826]of Arts and Sciences and the University for those opportunities.
[00:03:18.264]Where I go on from here will be with their support behind me.
[00:03:21.301]And I couldn't be more grateful to have it.
[00:03:24.304]With that being said, where I will go from here is to a Master
[00:03:27.307]of Arts program in international security at the University of Denver.
[00:03:31.244]And I'm very sad to be leaving this place, but I'm excited for new things to come.
[00:03:35.582]What I do know, though, is that I will always cherish
[00:03:38.418]this town, this university, these people.
[00:03:42.722]And I'll always have Husker fans with me wherever I go. Go, Big Red.

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