Senior Spotlight: Nicole Swayne
An incoming senior reflects on her experience at Long Beach State
By Karla Lopez Editor
“As my college journey is coming to an end, I am grateful for every experience I have had here,” says Nicole Swayne. She is a senior at Long Beach State pursuing degrees in both Communication Studies and Asian American Studies.
Despite the intense workload of two different liberal arts majors, Nicole is a multi-talented student, writer, producer and pop culture analyst. A goal of hers is to represent the Asian American community through any means.
Nicole notes that her interest in Asian American Studies originally stemmed from a high school course she took in Japanese language. She had taken Japanese for four years and soon after graduating high school, she was given a once in a lifetime opportunity: a trip to Japan. Attending a summer festival in Japan and wearing a kimono opened her eyes to her passion for cultural learning, something new and exciting she realized she could not learned from a textbook.
The summer she started at LBSU, Nicole knew the eye-opening experience of her trip wasn’t going to be her only life-changing experience.
The LBSU campus had more than double the amount of students of her high school, and had more opportunities to meet new people than ever. The diverse pool of students and their unique cultures made Nicole feel both overwhelmed and excited.
She knew that exposure to individuals of different backgrounds could help her become more well-rounded and maybe even help her discover new parts of herself.
A history class in the Asian American Studies department showed Nicole the lost history of Asian Americans leaders. Filipino Americans like Larry Itliong and Al Robles were two individuals she had had never known before but they became people that she saw as influential, especially being part Filipina herself. She says it helped her realize that LBSU “really does care about their students, by offering courses that assist in learning more about silenced individuals in society.”
Both the Japan trip and history course enticed Nicole to get more involved in her community, which led her to LBSU’s volunteer film opportunities. Her interest in communication studies gave her fluidity in networking with producers at College Beat TV, now 22 West Video. She had the opportunity to learn how to direct, produce, set up lights and microphones, and operate sound equipment.
She produced her own segment on the 31st Filipino Culture Night, and later won an award as a first-time producer. Traditional Filipino dances like Tinikling were taught and explained to Nicole and her crew.
“It was a really amazing and life-changing opportunity,” she said. It made her realize that it was important to share her culture with others in a creative way, all of which made the experience of directing the production a personal and meaningful one.
Nicole is grateful for the experiences LBSU has given her. She has learned more about the importance of her own culture, while having the leeway to study those of others. She feels empowered to apply her skills to social justice-based internships. After graduation, she aspires to do creative work that makes a tangible difference in her community, in any way she can.
