I recently went back to school to finish my undergraduate studies as a 29 year old sophomore. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, in fact, I was somewhat dreading it. I was worried that as a full time student, my free time would be nonexistent and I would be struggling to pursue any outside projects. But actually, the opposite happened. Being in school made me more proactive to work on my passion projects, and what I was learning in my classes directly affected those same projects and made them, like, 100% better. With my first semester complete, and a 4.0 GPA under my belt, I’m officially a junior woo hoo!

Going to school in a South Texas town right next to the Mexico border has certainly immersed me in a whole new culture and I’m learning more about how my beliefs and passions for animal rights and veganism parallel some of the same issues occurring in the lives of immigrants and Mexican workers. For me, it really reinforces my belief that humans will continue to struggle with peace and kindness until they can extend the same courtesy to animals. We forget how much we mirror our animal counterparts and that if we want respect and compassion, we should first be able to give it out regardless of species.

I made a 2 and a half minute video for one of my classes titled The Taste of Injustice. The main purpose of the video is to get people thinking outside of the box. The more connections we can make between humans and animals, different cultures and races, the struggles of various peoples and animals, then the more we begin to see that we all want the same thing – to be free to be ourselves.

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