 So that first question, what are some of the factors that contributed to your decision to attend U.S.? I'm Avery Howland. I'm from Pittsburgh, Vermont. I'm studying environmental science, concentrated in conservation biology and biodiversity in the Rubinstein School. I grew up coming to Burlington with my family all the time. I thought I knew the city. You know, I was like, oh, it's just going to be kind of old hat. Like, it's going to be boring. And that's not the reality that I have found as a student here. You know, there's little nooks and crannies all over campus and all over the city that if I wasn't a student here, I never would have been exposed to these like beautiful little coffee shops or like great breakfast places. You know, I never would have watched the sunrise over the mountains or the sunset over the lake. There is really a very wide range of students here from all over the United States and all over the world. And I've gotten to know a lot of different people from a lot of different places, which has been really cool. One of the fun things about being a Vermonter and living, you know, so close to school is that I can take my friends from other places home for a weekend. Or, you know, I've taken a couple of Swedish students home for Thanksgiving over the years, which has been really fun to be able to share my hometown and my culture with other students that I've met at the university. If I was talking to a Vermont student who is looking at coming to UVM, I would tell them, it's not what you think it is. I had this idea of what the University of Vermont and Burlington was like. And throughout my four years here, that's completely changed. It's so different than what I anticipated in the best way possible. I really, really enjoy my classes and interacting with my peers and my professors. Everybody is passionate about something different. And when you bring all those passions together in one classroom, it can really create a very interesting dynamic and a really cool environment to learn in. And it's really fun to just explore, you know, the different opinions and points of view as you're learning about the subject matter. I'm in a class right now called Restoration Ecology. And we're learning about how humans have, you know, basically ruined some ecosystems, but the steps that we can take to restore them. And I know sometimes in my line of study and environmental science, all of my professors are like, oh, it's a lot of doom and gloom. Like it's unhappy subjects to study sometimes because there has been so much damage done. But a lot of what I learned in class as well is, you know, how can we make up for the mistakes we've made or like repair the damage that we've done. So I'm really learning practical skills that I feel like I can take on, you know, to a job after, after I graduate. If I were talking to high school me, I think I would tell myself, you know, just calm down. Don't be as nervous as you are. Because I was very nervous coming into school. I was afraid, you know, I wouldn't fit in or I wouldn't find people that I like connected with or could be friends with. And that just was not the reality of my first year. I made friends everywhere I went because everyone else is in the same boat as you, you know, get involved in activities right away. I kind of held off on that. And I really regret not being involved my first semester. Because once I got involved, it really opened up the university to me. I met all these fantastic people from other majors and other schools that I never would have met if I hadn't started playing boom ball or going to pub quiz or, you know, joining clubs. And so it just is really important, I think, to go beyond the academics here and be involved in the community on campus. I am involved in Alpha Zeta, which is a co-ed service fraternity here on campus. We are an agricultural and environmental fraternity. So we do work across campus and in the Burlington community having to do with agriculture and the environment will help plant gardens in the spring. We grow pumpkins that we deliver to the president of the university every fall, which is really fun. My father was also a member of Alpha Zeta when he was a UVM student. So when I got inducted, he came to my induction ceremony and it was really special. He was very proud of me for being inducted. And it's really fun to kind of continue the legacy within my family.