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Ayden Carpenter wasn’t sure about moving from Washington, D.C. to Vermont to attend ����̽̽. Part of his hesitation was that he just didn’t know what to expect.  “I definitely didn't really know what I was getting myself into.  I looked at all the numbers and I knew that Vermont was a very white state. That's nothing you can like shy away from. But actually, Vermont is a very welcoming place. There are so many resources and just amazing people that are here, and they want to be there for you as resources and as mentors. As long as you're willing to come here and be open and accepting the state will be as open and accepting back.”

In the summer before his freshmen year Ayden got an e-mail from the Mosaic Center for Students of Color inviting him to apply for the Summer Enrichment Scholars Program. "It's like a little introduction to ����̽̽ over the summer. They get a small cohort of students of color to come to Vermont a little early take a class and just do community building. You go sleep in the dorm with all these people, you take a class with all these people, you run around with all these people, and that was my first introduction to Vermont. It made me feel that there were resources here for me as a student of color and it made me excited and hopeful. I think the Mosaic Center offers so much for students and it is like a little anchor to make sure I always have something to go back to if it gets hard in Vermont."

The Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) is the thing that ultimately attracted Ayden to ����̽̽, “CDAE is the reason I'm here. I love my department from top to bottom. My first CDAE class was this massive 300-person lecture and I just remember hearing this broad freshman-level overview of world topics and a lot of the challenges and wicked problems facing the world, and some of the ways we're dealing with them. That's what my department is about and that's when I knew I picked the right program. Ever since then I end up taking fifteen to eighteen credits of CDAE every semester. My department just cares so much about the world and about good people doing good I'm very happy to call it my academic home.”

Some of the highlights of his program include all the out-of-classroom learning opportunities that he’s had, “As a department CDAE relies heavily on experiential learning and our capstones are no different so for the public communication capstone it's you're partnering with a nonprofit and you're functionally given a project to help them out. One group of students worked with Vermont Migrant Justice and made stuff for them like some posters and some brochures. It’s really just doing tangible work with a local organization. It's a really cool opportunity for students from the wide range of public communication concentrations, whether you're a journalism person, whether you're a visual media student, whether you love (Adobe) Illustrator, there's an opportunity for everyone to just showcase the skills they've built over the past four years.”

Ayden has also found time to pursue lots of additional activities beyond his regular course work. He’s an avid cyclist, has been on the bicycle racing team, and has served in leadership positions for the organization of major campus racing. He’s also been in leadership positions in Student Government. 

But he says two of his favorite experiences have been working for on-campus professional internship projects.  As a freshman he applied to work with the Center for Research on Vermont and was hired to be an on-camera interviewer for dozens of episodes of a television production. 

You can see some of that work

Next, he went to work in the Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) office. The CAP program is a unique ����̽̽ opportunity where students in Consumer Law in Action work for the Attorney General of Vermont answering calls from the public in a hotline environment and assisting those callers as consumer advocates. 

Ayden summarizes his time at ����̽̽ this way, “There are so many people on this campus, just trusting the innate ability and passion of students to do amazing work. They give them the resources and guidance and freedom to explore what interests them, and to try out what they can do for the world.  I'm just constantly amazed by the things that I'm able to do and that my peers are able to do!”

Ayden is keeping busy this summer doing a local internship at a non-profit that focuses on assisting Ethiopian immigrants and refugees and he says he’s really looking forward to his senior year, which, because he’s carried so many credits throughout his time at ����̽̽ will be pretty chill by comparison. 

As for after graduation he says he can see a clear direction even if he hasn’t set a particular goal, “I feel like I have a good idea of what the path forward is -- not immediately -- but probably in like 3 or four years, I'm going to go back to grad school. I don't know whether I want to do a master’s in public administration, or just go to law school.  Very thankful my department has giving me an opportunity to play around with both of those fields and I liked both of them.  Maybe I’ll just do a joint degree. Between then and now and then it looks like I'm going to work, probably work at a nonprofit, or I might try and do Peace Corps.  I’d also like go to Europe and ride my bike up some mountains for a little bit.”

As for the honor of winning such a prestigious award, “It just genuinely touches my heart that someone cares enough about me and the work that I've done academically and all my extracurriculars, that they decided of their own volition that they wanted to nominate me for something. It really means a lot. There's a lot of people that have helped me in so many ways throughout my academic journey and I would not be as successful as I have been during my time here if not for them.”