In my fellowship, I was able to help with an up-and-coming podcast, highlighting our hidden history. This is important to the organization's mission because they are trying to empower young people to take on the challenges of today and tomorrow with history as their foundation, guide, and inspiration. This podcast, each season, highlights fifteen students from across the country, and history that they deem important to them and should be known — thus, increasing knowledge for a better today, and tomorrow, for all.

I was able to apply my current understandings in studies on ethnicity and race to corroborate that the topics being discussed had information from reputable sources. We had to make sure that we weren’t doing what our predecessors were doing and deleting some points in history that weren’t so favorable. Every side of the conversation was met and addressed. When you achieve that, you are able to discuss the history of an event and make an educated hypothesis as to why certain events happened, and work to create solutions so that we learn from our past mistakes and ensure that the same mistakes never happen in the future.

A challenge that we weren’t expecting were requests for collaboration with big names such as Penguin Random House and Pearson. The problem was that we didn’t have anyone set as the point of contact on our end to handle conversations with these publishers and negotiations on how to form a relationship with them. While I was nervous to take this on, I am extremely grateful for the experience. I was able to learn what goes into negotiations and understand the multifaceted responsibilities tied with sponsorships. We did not want to have any partnerships that restricted our access to books and that needed exclusivity. This was interesting to confer about because it was a peek into a part of the organization I have never been exposed to previously. Experiencing this, I was able to learn new skills and communication skills I would not have learned otherwise!

Going into this fellowship, I knew I was going to learn skills that would help me become more versed in numerous topics, but I wasn’t expecting the impact it would have on my cultural identity as well. I was able to produce an episode that explored my Indigenous history. It sparked a fire in my passion for ethnicity and races and how much we have to learn from them. I learned about the hidden history of the indigenous people with the forming of the United States and the atrocities committed. This is key to my passion in my major and my passion in life. I want to help make the world a cleaner, better place by studying sustainable development and concentrating on Native American Studies because indigenous people already had trade routes and systems that used sustainable practices before colonizers landed in the Americas. My goal is to use my time left at Columbia to research the practices of our indigenous ancestors to try and find ways to make our future bright — a future that is carbon neutral, eliminates climate change, and rebuilds ecosystems for an everlasting world.