Meet Cassa, student at NWIC!

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

Che, my Atco Cassa Hello, My name is Cassa Cole and I am a student at the Northwest Indian College. I am from Bellingham, Washington, and I also attend NWIC here in Bellingham, Washington. It is my third year enrolled here of the college, and I started school in 2018. I am taking classes remotely since the pandemic, and I have a full time schedule that I do. From my house on Zoom, I was led to choose Northwest Indian College for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is that I really had a desire to attend a tribal college. I was looking for an institution that prioritize the native narrative throughout all of their educational opportunities, and so that is definitely a leading factor in why I chose this as a place to obtain a degree. The other reason that I am attending Northwest Indian College is because they are uniquely providing a bachelor's degree in environmental science called native environmental science. And it is the only institution in the world that offers a degree in native environmental science, which is essentially the combination of modern leading edge science with traditional ecological knowledge. which I find to be fascinating and really important work. I am happy to be here taking so many different courses that have to do with science. Math, Northwest plants, ethnobotany. I think that one of the most enjoyable courses I've taken caught me by surprise. NWIC offers a cultural sovereignty program which really elects to teach students about the importance of retaining their indigenous culture. My mother was adopted, and so my connection with my ancestry has always been a little bit murky for me. But attending here at NWIC, I was encouraged to reach out and find out who my ancestors were and more about my culture. And so I am a descendant of the Aleutic people of Alaska. I'm unenrolled member in the Chignuk Lake Tribe, which is north of Kodiak, Alaska, and it has been quite a journey with the help of Northwest Indian College to find the genealogical information to help me understand who my relatives are, my grandma and great grandmother and so many of my aunts and uncles. It has been an incredible gift of attending school here. Lastly, I just say that I think the kind of students that thrive at NWIC are self motivated individuals who are just really eager to learn and a kind of self lead in a lot of ways, especially with the need to do school online. I think that NWIC does a great job of catering to students of all ages, but they specifically work hard with students who wear more than one hat other than being in the academic world. They have a lot of assistance and support for students who are also working full time and are parents. I really am enjoying my time here, at NWIC.