Nathaniel Avery

Compare your career plans as a first-year student with your career plans now. Why did your plans change or not change?

I entered Wake Forest planning to major in Mathematics, go to grad school, and be a professor. Now, while I still want to be a professor, I plan to go into acting or stage managing, and using my experience to apply to grad school at a later point in life. I realized I still enjoy math, but I realized it’s not what I want to study and do for the rest of my life. Additionally, I changed my thinking on success for my career. I recognize I may not be making six figures majoring in Theatre, but it’s what I enjoy doing and the only thing I could see doing with my future.

Now that you are a graduating student, what advice do you wish you could have given yourself as an incoming student four years ago?

Do what you love and don’t let the small things stress you out. There’s not enough time to worry about everything going on around you, and there’s definitely not enough time to do things purely out of obligation instead of enjoyment.

Wake Forest has lots of traditions, and sometimes students create their own. Do you have a favorite Wake Forest tradition?

My favorite tradition is absolutely Pitsgiving. There is nothing more fun than waking up at 6 a.m., sitting around all day eating food, and sneaking a TV into the Pit to watch Thanksgiving movies and watch a fake fireplace with people you care about.

What was your favorite class outside your major or minor areas of study and why did it appeal to you?

My favorite class was “Issues and Trends in Education: Hip-Hop Pedagogy, Poetics, and Remixes for Higher Education” taught by Donovan Livingston. The class used hip-hop to explore a variety of struggles of the Black community and how that transfers to being kept out of higher education. The class was fun, thought provoking, collaborative, and more unique than any class I’ve taken at Wake. For our final exam, we hosted an open-mic night in Shorty’s which I MC’d. It was one of the most fun things I’ve done at Wake and something I’ll remember forever.

What is the most fundamental change you’ve experienced since your time as a first-year student?

I think my biggest change is I recognize my own faults. I know I’m not the most organized, I have a bad memory, I’m a bit of a gossip. While I may have overlooked those traits when I came into college, I know them now and do my best to work around them in my daily life.