Introduction

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     Hi everyone, my name is Colin Burkett.  I'm a senior here at Upstate, and I'm turning 21 on September 19th.  I was born in Akron, New York, before moving to Boiling Springs, North Carolina and then to Lyman, South Carolina in 2006.  I study Secondary English Education, with no minor because that's just how the education program is.  Like any English Ed major, my hobbies include reading and writing, both of which I do as much as I can with what little free time I have, but I also enjoy watching movies and listening to as much different music as I can.  Teaching is a big passion of mine, but I also really like writing, and I hope that eventually my writing can take off enough that I can do that full-time.  I don't work during the school year, but I do pick up shifts around town during both winter and summer breaks.  As a learner, I tend to do the best with fairly strict guidelines just so I know what I'm doing, but I like to take assignments as they come, not focusing on the big picture of things to come until it's relevant.  Basically, I work best when the little assignments are right in front of me, letting the major assignments get completed closer to the due date.  Of course, I think about these assignments when they're given, but I try to leave my schedule open for changes that may be made to due dates or criteria. 
     For books that were influential to me as an adolescent, I mainly remember novels like The Hobbit and Fahrenheit 451 sticking out to me, both as books that had an influence on me and that I read often.  I connected less with the themes and more with the characters, and the types of characters that I have always responded well to are those who find themselves between two sides of a conflict, with reasons to side on each, but that feel like they can't commit to either for whatever reasons.  To me, books represent a way to escape from the doldrums of life, to experience worlds and characters that have no way to exist in our world and can only be brought to life through the written world.  I've opened up more recently to stories that do take place in the real world, but I've often found that I only respond well to these stories when they pertain to a group or part of the world that I have no way of experiencing.  After all, if I wanted to read stories about college students or something like that, I'd much rather just live those sorts of stories.

Comments

  1. TashaTOnlineSeptember 4, 2018 at 6:37 PM

    I am excited to work with you this semester, Colin. You seem to have a deep appreciation for literature and it's impact on our lives. As a learner who focuses on the details, you are able to take in the big picture one piece at a time. I appreciate the information you share here, but would love to know more about what you write and how you would like to make a career of writing. I used to teach Fahrenheit 451, and it is still one of my all-time favorite novels!

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