Meet Joseph Van Dorn.
He’s a fourth year majoring in Biology and English.
He’s involved with CARE and he’s President of the Writer’s Circle.
Wait did you catch that? English and Biology?!
It’s not very often that you meet a student who is able to bridge these opposite subjects together and his ability to do so is well, quite amazing.
Even though he initially started off as a Biology major, after taking Humanities Core his freshmen year, he knew he wanted to continue with writing.
“I feel really at home with English and I’m pretty comfortable with [writing],” he says. However, when he tells most people his majors, many are very surprised, yet intrigued by what he plans to pursue in the future with such opposite majors.
He’s honestly just a normal guy with big ambitions.
One of his aspirations after graduation is to hopefully find a job in Germany, interesting huh? There are not many students that I personally know that would take on such a great flight after college, but he feels it would be a great experience to be able to work there. He plans to pursue a career in either research tech or editing housing, but leaning towards the latter position. “Even though I have no mentioned the full details to my parents yet, I have talked to some professor who are very supportive of my plans.”
However, between the two majors, Joseph would definitely choose English over Biology any day. He enjoys writing and the ability to take the time to work on a paper and create a personal analysis is one of the greatest feelings in the world, plus the added bonus is receiving a good grade.
In regards to Joseph’s involvement with CARE and Writer’s Circle, he is definitely the busy bee. Under CARE, he is part of CHAMPS, which stands for Challenging All Men to Prevent Sexism, as a pure educator. This organization holds workshops for students, which discusses issues on preventing sexism in hopes to educate men. One of his main goals this year for CHAMPS is to create a new workshop where people will be able to heal through writing. Similar to therapy, it has been noted that writing is helpful and allows for greater empowerment over oneself.
As for Writer’s Circle, he is one of four co-founders for this organization. This club was designed as a way for students to express their creative writing through fiction, short stories and poetry. Writer’s Circle basically collects writing pieces and later plans to publish the member’s works in a book, which is usually out around Spring Quarter. “For Writer’s Circle, I hope to get things started earlier this year [dealing with publication], bring the officers closer together, and create socials with the organization’s members,” he said. Last year was a group’s way of establishes themselves, but this year he hopes to build off from what they already have.
Joseph’s ambitious character illustrates that everyone should strive for the underdog within them, and even the smallest accomplishments or even aspiration makes you a celebrity.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Irvine chapter.