Colby is a tour guide with the Office of Admission, has worked as a film restoration assistant and archivist for the modern culture and media department and participates in research with the sociology department. He’s a member of Rural Students at Brown and occasionally writes op-eds in the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper.

The Open Curriculum was the main thing that drew me in, because specifically where I came from, we didn't have a lot of freedom to take different classes. It was pretty much just the standard courses. It was something that I just didn't enjoy about high school. I knew that when I came to Brown I would have a much broader scope of what I could learn. 

I took an education class in the fall semester of sophomore year, and I really loved the class. I enjoyed the way that we talked about education more as a process and a practice and what that means for students. It was just a really different way than I've heard people talk about education before and I was relating it with my own experiences in education. Wealth disparity is a big thing where I'm from, in Appalachia. I felt almost an obligation to speak about the work that needs to be done in this area.

I think I want to go into guidance counseling. It's something I nourished while working as a tour guide, helping students figure out pathways, answering their questions. I just noticed that I really enjoyed trying to help people. Eventually I do want to work in higher education, particularly with admissions.

Goals for me never end. So when there's one thing that I reach, I don't want to stop there. I want to keep going and try to do better. It's many processes in and of themselves. So I hope to just work up through education by gaining experience in each field and bringing that along with me with each new step.