This spring, we are thrilled to welcome four interns Seeking MORE with us. We are getting to know them through their writing and learning how they will Seek MORE this semester.
My name is Xavier Cruz, and I’m a senior in high school, and I'm getting ready to go to college. I’ve been admitted to Purdue University Fort Wayne and will major in Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. I joined MORE in the second semester of my sophomore year, so it’s easy to say that it has had an impact on me. What I do for MORE as an intern is edit audio, and sometimes videos, for their social media.
As I went through my sophomore year and all of my junior year, the articles and interviews I’ve worked on have helped me grow myself and expand my perspective. Looking back on it, what it means to Seek MORE for me can be boiled down to a single core belief: “You cannot forever live in your comfort zone.” It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that MORE is what got me to interact with people. Before joining MORE I strayed away from conversations and people, only talking to people I knew beforehand. Now I am vice president of my school’s Japanese club and heading out to Japan in the summer of 2025.
To put it plainly, the old me would not believe that I could regularly talk to classmates in the future. Now that I socialize, I don’t ever want to go back to my old, quiet self. I’ve made friends with people I thought I would never talk to. This extends outside of school as well. The dread I felt at the very thought of driving made me afraid to get behind the wheel. Now, I drive while wondering what I was so afraid of. I previously would have laughed at the idea of going to the gym due to my lack of confidence. Now I can go without a care in the world, focused on a goal to better my health.
MORE has taught me that the comfort zone, as its name implies, is comfortable, and one could never really grow and learn by staying inside of it. As I prepare for the transition of the end of high school and into the beginning of college, MORE helps me remember what’s important. The fact that there are people who genuinely care for me. That it’s never always ‘you against the world,’ you just need to ask for help from those around you. That the only opinions that matter to you are the ones that you say matter. That, by the end of the day, shooting for the moon with everything you have will guarantee you a wonderful view.
