Connor Deir
What non-academic experience at Wake Forest was most meaningful to you?
My time with Club Swimming at Wake Forest has been so meaningful to me. While I had swam in high school and knew that I wanted to continue swimming in college, the team’s warm and welcoming environment helped me to meet some of my closest friends in my four years at Wake. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to be a part of such an amazing team and excited to see how the team will grow when I return for homecoming!
Wake Forest’s Pro Humanitate motto is a guiding philosophy for many students and alumni. Did it have an impact on your student experience and has it influenced your plans for the future?
Pro Humanitate radically expanded my perception of advocacy. Before attending Wake, I channeled my lived experience as I sought to promote equity. However, my enriching politics and sociology courses and programming work with the LGBTQ+ Center allowed me to see how engaging with underserved communities and addressing systemic inequalities creates positive change on a massive scale.
Wake Forest has lots of traditions, and sometimes students create their own. Do you have a favorite Wake Forest tradition?
Hit the Bricks has always been my favorite tradition at Wake Forest. Whether sprinting laps with the Club Swim team or cheering on my friends as they run for their own organizations, I love how the campus community comes together to support such a great cause.
Now that you are a graduating student, what advice do you wish you could have given yourself as an incoming student four years ago?
Put yourself out there. I know that it’s scary, but I made some of my closest friends at Wake Forest after showing up to my first club swim practice without knowing anyone. You never know what amazing connections are waiting for you until you take that first step.
Compare your career plans as a first-year student with your career plans now. Why did your plans change or not change?
I came to Wake Forest with the goal of becoming a lawyer and took several politics classes as part of the pre-law track. However, while just a first-year student, I became enthralled by all of the different enriching politics courses across a variety of subfields within the discipline and realized that my true interests lay in political science. I’m so grateful that I was able to take these fascinating courses with dedicated faculty and I know that everything I learned will help me thrive in my career after Wake!