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I was attending the 73rd Student Conference on U.S. Affairs, an annual gathering of civilian undergraduates to discuss the future of both foreign and domestic American policies. For 4 days, we were split into roundtable groups that partnered us with West Point cadets; we were tasked with assessing a major topic issue, debating the direction that the United States
should proceed, and forming a strategic briefing document to be delivered to the conference body on the final morning. I was assigned to the roundtable group on Climate Change; in my cohort, there were students from Yale and Harvard working side by side with students from public universities. There was a moment where I was unsure if I truly belonged at this table – and then the debates began. We met in 3 hour sessions, 3 times a day, for 3 days. We argued over the role of the United States in influencing the rest of the world, the balance between promoting industry and regulation, and the future of renewable energy systems. There is a moment, or maybe more of a feeling, for a young kid from Kentucky, sitting at a table in a 200 year-old building nested in the greatest military academy in the world, surrounded by Ivy Leaguers and cadets, joining into debates on issues of global value – a serendipity that occurs when a brief thought slips into the back of your mind, building itself up until it lodges itself into your soul – I do belong at this table.
At the end of the conference, I was selected to be one of the speakers representing my cohort in delivering our strategic brief to the full body. I had the chance to tour the full grounds of West Point, see the Cadet Chapel and its grand organ, and walk through the West Point Library with walls filled by portraits of great American leaders that had once walked the same paths and looked over the same grounds. West Point in November is a gorgeous place; the “gray season” that sets in once the New York winter comes had not yet set in, and from the balcony at the top of the library, West Point looked like a castle nestled in a brilliant forest in full fall bloom, a cascading of red and orange that only adds to the ethereal, timeless quality that West Point possesses. However, as much as the history nerd in me adored the chance to take in the sights and sounds of the Army’s oldest military academy, and the political scientist in me wanted to hear the debates and opinions from the officers and professors that lectured, it was that feeling of belonging, that serendipity of self-assurance, that will be my greatest takeaway from SCUSA.
Bryson Sebastian is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2024. He is studying political science and history at the University of Louisville.