A Week at Wake: Tuesday

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Do you remember the challenge of choosing your major? 

Three pairs of students work together Tuesday night on seemingly random activities: lining up a row of pennies by year, drawing a picture, doing a difficult logic puzzle, advertising basic items like pens or notebooks, using prompts to start a conversation and building towers with blocks.

But each station has a purpose. “Making a Major Decision,” an event hosted by the Office of Personal and Career Development, helps students find their place on the Strong Interest Inventory, a career assessment tool, and get a step closer to choosing their major.

For example, tediously organizing pennies might mean you’re a “Conventional” type, more likely to become an accountant, archivist or analyst. “I didn’t expect an activity like that to be exciting,” says first-year student Shepard Adamson. “But I think that was fun! I’m going to ponder that.”

At the building-blocks station, some students stack them into a basic rectangle while others fashion a castle. “It was just fun to use your hands to create something,” says Luke Baugher, a first-year student. He’s never felt like he has an interest in engineering, so he didn’t expect to have much passion toward building a tower, he says. But “Realistic” types who enjoy such activities may want to consider careers as wildlife biologists, cartographers, military officers, chefs and more — leaving Baugher a lot of options for a major that’s a good fit. 

These categories are intended to help students notice themes and patterns, rather than pointing them directly to a major, says Director of Career Education
and Student Experience Amy Willard (MA ’17), who led the event. As a next step, she recommends that students meet with a career coach or faculty member — or choose an introductory class in an interest they have identified.

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Earlier in the day at the WakerSpace, the University’s workshop for makers since 2018, the smell of woodsmoke fills the air as an education class fires up the laser cutter to create shadow boxes.

Students are scattered around the space in various stages of the process, some meticulously adjusting computer files and others gluing their boxes together. Ali Sakkal, associate teaching professor of education and a 2021 WakerSpace Faculty Fellow, hops from student to student to help. 

“When you add color to that, it’s gonna pop,” Sakkal says to one. “Is this too much glue?” another student asks. The laser machine buzzes in the background. 

In the works: an ocean scene, a cityscape and figures still a mystery. “This (project) transfers to so many other things. It’s a process of trying, failing and trying again,” Sakkal says. “(It’s) sustained inquiry.”

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At lunch time, laughter fills the basement of the Divinity and Religious Studies Building as a crowd floods in after the weekly 11 a.m. service in Davis Chapel. “Tuesdays are the hub of our social and in-person activities,” says Khelen Kuzmovich (MDiv ’13), academic program coordinator, of the lunchtime gathering started not long after the School of Divinity was founded in 1999. 

Kuzmovich remembers the importance of this informal, open dialogue from her own experience as a divinity student. “Our program (is) very academic, but it touches on personal issues of faith and the way you grew up,” she says. “So often you need to have those conversations.”

“I like just being able to be vulnerable and be transparent and just bond over a meal,” says Isaiah Smith, a first-year divinity student. “You can bring different conversations to people … and they’ll be receptive.” 

Beulah Gullion, a second-year, adds, “I also really like that we get to hang out with our professors.” A few seconds later, John Senior, assistant dean of vocational formation and doctoral education, stops by their table for what turns into banter about strategy for the school’s intramural flag football team.

Today’s lunch features a faith community fair, with a handful of churches hosting information tables to help students find worship communities and internships, a school requirement. Olena Withrow (MDiv ’25), a pastoral resident, ministry assistant and communications manager at First Baptist on Fifth, which alumni may remember as First Baptist Church, shares her experience: “In school, you can get very theory-heavy or get stuck in your head,” she says. “So getting to continue some of that imaginative work while also being in a local community and figuring out how it works, and how it doesn’t, has been really fun.”

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At 5 p.m. in one of Worrell Professional Center’s wood-paneled courtrooms, an early round of the 2025 1L Trial Bar Competition gives first-year law students John Kaelber (’25) and Virginia Zanella a turn, respectively, as prosecutor and defense attorney in this year’s mock criminal case: The State of Love Island vs. Miguel Harichi, based on a plotline from a popular reality-TV show. 

“Anger, retaliation, murder,” Kaelber opens. “That is what this case is about.”

“Only one man truly had the motive, the means and the opportunity to commit this crime,” Zanella responds. “We will be showing there is reasonable doubt, and plenty of it.”

After multiple rounds of competition over the next week, Ellie Stamps and Cole Hastings (’23) advance to the final round, presenting their closing arguments before a panel of judges. Stamps wins the 2025 championship.