Student Profiles
Dan Sportiello
Philosophy and English
Class of
2007
Brookfield, WI
"The Honors Program has a recipe for Instant Renaissance Man: deny the dichotomy between the disciplines, and the rest will follow. Take classes in everything, no matter your major. Have scientists study literature, and have artists study physics. Remove arbitrary limits of specialization. Free yourself. If you take this seriously—and believe me, you owe it to yourself to do so—you will emerge on the other side a changed person, a better person, a person utterly transcendent of who and what you were before. You will have at last become whole.
"I spent the previous year studying abroad at the University of Oxford. I learned more about Philosophy and English than I would have thought possible—and, more importantly, I learned just how much there was that I did not know. This is to say nothing of the two luxurious six-week breaks that I spent roaming Europe to my heart's content.
"We go on road trips sometimes in the Honors Program. Each fall, for instance, Professor Delaney shepherds his Honors Program into a charter bus and we make the crossing into Canada so that we might enjoy the Shakespeare Stratford Festival. I would talk about how it is an enlightening educational experience—and it is—but the truth is that we go mostly because it is simply a wonderfully good time.
"The culmination of each academic year is, for me at least, the Final Honors Program Research Symposium: to attend is to witness five of the most brilliant young minds on the entire planet gather together to impress all present with their brilliant theses. When you get there, look around; half of these people will be famous in ten years. And one day, if you work very hard and are very, very lucky, you will be one of them. Godspeed."
