Annalie Buscarino '21
I am currently a first-year student (1L) at Case Western Reserve University School of Law where I am seeking to pursue my interests in criminal justice reform and international human rights. When I'm not writing memos to help prosecute war crimes, or developing curriculums to implement in juvenile justice centers, you can find me on the soccer field with the Case Western Club Soccer Team!
I also enjoy editing novels for Triada U.S. Literary Agency, an organization I began working with during my time at WC. Thank you to the English Department for that one!
Favorite Classes and Professors
The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and Inside Out: Gender, Race, and Citizenship classes definitely had the biggest impact on my passions, career, and analytical understanding of the world. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity decisively opened my eyes to institutionalized discrimination that I, as a white woman, was privileged to learn about and not to experience as my lived reality. After taking the class in the first semester of my freshman year, I designed the remainder of my undergraduate career to better inform, practice, and mobilize my advocacy, which I continue to do to this day.
My Inside Out class further propelled and refined my identity as a social justice advocate, particularly in the area of criminal justice reform. Taught by Professor Steinmetz, the Inside Out course is a semester-long Anthropology class that takes place at Baylor Women's Correctional Institute with incarcerated women. The class allowed me to connect with women whose stories in the criminal justice system captured layers of systemic discrimination that led to their inordinate criminalization. My conversations with my incarcerated classmates led me to both write my thesis and apply for law school.
Fondest WC Memory
Some of my fondest WC memories were during my time overseas — whether that was going on a safari of the Ngorongoro Crater during my internship in Zanzibar, studying Mafia literature during my study abroad experience in Milan, or traveling and creating stories on the roads in between. My international experience at Washington College truly defined my time there, and I would not be the person I am today without it.
Otherwise, my fondest WC memories are with my teammates from the Washington College Women's Soccer Team. My team offered a family environment during my entire undergraduate career, and I remain close with many of my teammates to this day.
Let's Hear It for the Liberal Arts
As a liberal arts school, Washington College offered me the flexibility and encouragement to pursue an interdisciplinary education that not only made me a more well-rounded student but made me a more well-rounded person. Through Washington College, I was able to graduate with two majors and three minors, to participate in varsity sports, to work on-campus and off-campus, to serve several clubs and honor societies, to take classes in non-traditional settings, to intern and study around the world, and to author an SCE that I will continue to develop throughout the remainder of my academic career. Each of my experiences lent me a different skill set and exposed me to different perspectives, enabling me to connect with and serve different communities more effectively throughout my legal career. Through its small class size, WC ultimately enabled me to work closely with admissions, professors, and the career center to build the undergraduate experience that I needed to be a better student of the world, and I benefit from that type of education every single day.
Advice
Your undergraduate career is a time for exploration. That exploration enables you to find who you are and who you want to be. My advice is to utilize this period of time to embrace that self-discovery — open doors, follow threads, dive into pools even if you don't know where they lead. Expanding the limits of your comfort zone will define and shape who you are in important and inarticulable ways, and I know I immensely benefitted from that experience during my undergraduate career.
Follow your passions. Try new things. Trust your gut. You will become the best version of yourself in doing so.
