I want to pursue a career in public policy because I believe lasting change comes through conversation before legislation. Good public policy is guided by civil discourse, and understanding its role in shaping policy has inspired my interest in legislative work. It is this belief that led me to pursue political science as my college major and seek opportunities to engage in policy and public service. A policy issue I have found myself discussing time and time again is that of gun rights within the United States. Gun policy is one of the most prominent and difficult issues in the U.S. because it involves constitutional rights and public safety. I am an advocate for the right of self-defense, but I also recognize and sympathize with the concerns many people have about gun violence. The scale at which gun violence occurs in the U.S. has only exacerbated the issue and has grown the divisions between those who prioritize gun safety and those who prioritize gun rights. This is why I believe that civil discourse is one of the most crucial factors in shaping gun policy. And I believe that meaningful reform will only be achieved through strong civil discussion between people who are willing to discuss both values respectfully. When I arrived at Norwich University, I found a student government that many students felt disconnected from or did not know existed. Seeing this, my roommate and I saw an opportunity to create meaningful reform of our student government. We decided to attend the open forum meetings they held, presented ideas, got to know the student senators and by the end of our first semester, we were both voted in as the youngest senators within our institution's 200-year history. After this we helped rewrite our SGA constitution to strengthen our involvement with the institution and bolster student representation across clubs, athletics, and campus organizations. That experience helped show me that effective policy begins with listening to the people it affects and shaping reform from there. While student government allowed me to actively pursue my goal of helping shape policy, participating in my Model UN team taught me what it means to engage effectively in meaningful civil discussion. Through building friendships with others in MUN and the experience I gained, I was eventually selected to compete in our team to attend the Harvard Assembly. This experience for me was eye-opening; it changed my view on civil discourse by allowing me to put everything I knew and practiced at Norwich to the test with people from all over the world in the DISEC committee, where I had to effectively navigate conversations with people who did not all see eye to eye to succeed. Ultimately, this Model UN experience not just opened my eyes to how complex civil discourse is, but it also helped to reinforce my belief that civil discourse is the bridge between people's different perspectives and effective policy solutions. Norwich Student Government Association - Senator March 2025 - Present. Contact: Bruce Dobbins, bdobbins@norwich.edu Organization: Norwich University Harvard National Assembly - Delegate February 2026. Contact: Zachary Bennet, zbennett@norwich.edu Organization: Harvard University

One of the most valuable leadership lessons I believe ROTC has helped teach me is peer leadership, particularly leading individuals who may be older or more experienced than I am. During my first year of college, in a structured cadet environment, I was placed in situations that required me to demonstrate this ability. During my first year in college, participating in ROTC within the Corps of Cadets, I have been faced with the challenge of working closely with people from all walks of life, with different upbringings, values, and personalities. This environment presented me with a unique situation I had never faced before, in which I learned a form of leadership grounded in trust, communication, and consistency. This lesson, however, is not just taught in a single training but over time, during which I had to learn to lead my peers effectively when given responsibility. And this was something I often encountered resistance with when stepping up or being chosen for a specific role, where people would be reluctant to follow me because I was their age, or they thought they could do a better job. I learned that I had to prove through my actions that I was reliable, prepared, and willing to listen as much as I directed. Going into ROTC, I had a decent grasp of how to lead and what actions were effective within peer leadership, but having these skills put into practice in this environment was the real test, and a hard one at that. As I continued through these trainings, I learned how to approach peer-to-peer leadership effectively, as it's easy to say what is needed and harder to put those actions into practice. So, I learned how to refine my approach. I learned how to communicate expectations, listen to concerns and ideas, and build consistency in my character and in my leadership. And this allowed me to stand out within my platoon as someone reliable, easy to work with, a good follower and leader who blended with the team, and someone upper-level students would look to entrust with peer-to-peer responsibilities. Peer leadership has been an invaluable lesson for me, one that I can and will actively apply in environments where leadership is not automatically determined by rank or title. Whether leading enlisted soldiers or working in a civilian organization, I will face people who are older or more experienced than I am. In those situations, I will be able to rely on the principle I have learned through my experience so far in ROTC: leadership is not about being the most authoritative or qualified person in the room, but about being the most dependable. By focusing on trust, communication, and steady example, I will better lead diverse groups of people in high-stress environments.