Name: Peter Varela

Hometown: West Orange, NJ

Activities at Princeton: Member of University Orchestra (oboe); Director of the Princeton Prison Project; Orange Key Tour Guide; Committee member of the Student Steering Committee for the ‘Just Society’ sponsored by the Pace Center, and Princeton Prize in Race Relations; President of Accion Latina; Founder of Discourse Magazine; Staff member of the Princeton Progressive Nation; Forbes Undergraduate Fellow

Before Princeton, I was a student who was not sure what he wanted to study and realized, though implicitly, that the only way to find out was to “cross-pollinate.”

I grew at Princeton by both by taking classes that I thought I might be interested in and joining groups where I could meet as many people as possible.

I supported “cross-pollination” by attending Hallelujah worship service where I am still the only light-skinned brother in there.

I learned that all you have to do is put yourself in the position where you can influence others. Attend group meetings where you think you might not feel comfortable; in doing so you might set a trend for other students you had similar reservations at first.

After reflecting on my experience at Princeton, I have concluded that we come from all over and hence you need to listen and absorb as much as you can. There’s only so much you can personally do in terms of engaging and promoting activism; the rest of you should want to listen because we all have different stories to tell.

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