Alumni Board Current Scholar Profile: Q&A with 2014 Scholar David Andrews

Members of the Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board are interviewing their fellow Boettcher Scholars to help the community get to know one another better. The following Q&A was compiled by Boettcher Scholar Gergana Kostadinova.

Scholar Year: 2014
Hometown: Louisville
College(s), Degree(s): Colorado College, English – Focus in Creative Writing (Poetry), Class of 2018

What are you currently interested in pursuing after graduating?

After graduation I will drive out to northern Massachusetts to work as a summer session teaching intern at the Northfield Mount Hermon School. I will be teaching the “Writing in the Outdoors” course alongside a master teacher during the six-week program. I am also waiting to hear back from the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program. This fall, I also applied to teach English in Uruguay during the 2018-19 school year. Before I leave for Massachusetts and become an adult, I hope to make use of the touring bike I bought this summer and go for a multi-week tour in the western United States.

Tell us about what activities, groups, and/or organizations you have joined in college and why you joined them.

I joined the student radio station, the Sounds of Colorado College, during my first year at CC mostly so I could spend more time with a friend who also had a show on the station. Surprisingly, I’ve stuck with my radio show since 2014 and still spend an hour every Monday streaming music to around 17,000 listeners across the Front Range. Just kidding. At most, I have five listeners every week, but it’s still a good time. In addition to DJing, I am a writing center tutor, I lead backpacking trips with the Outdoor Education Community, and I was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper for two semesters.

Tell us about an important mentor you have had.

The boss of the ice cream shop where I worked in high school is probably the most important non-parental mentor I’ve had in my life. He always gets good haircuts, which is something I aspire to. In addition, he is a literal force of nature and wakes up every day with the desire to achieve his dreams. He recently told me that I should challenge myself and take risks in the next couple of years while I’m fresh out of college. This time in my life, he said, is one of the rare moments where my decisions will only truly affect one person: me.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

The Four Agreements were introduced to me by an Uber driver in Los Angeles in 2015. He had little water bottles and fun-size Snickers in his Honda Odyssey, but was also packing some indispensable life advice. The Four Agreements are as follows. 1. Be impeccable with your word, 2. Don’t take anything personally, 3. Don’t make assumptions, and 4. Always do your best. I encourage everyone to read The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz to learn more. The agreements are based on the idea that humans live a “dream” conjured by their perception of the world, but it is possible to control this dream and attain happiness and peace.

If you could have dinner with one or more people from history, whom would you choose and why? 

James Baldwin would be a great dinner guest. My dad recommended I watch “I Am Not Your Negro” last year, and I was very interested in Baldwin. I doubt he’d have much interest in having dinner with me, but I think our dinner would have the potential to be an enjoyable two- to three-hour experience. I would ask him some questions about his time living in France, his opinion on hip-hop’s place in American culture, and learn more about his writing process and favorite poets.