The Straker Prize is an award offered to two Arts One students every year in honour of Dr. Stephen Straker (1942-2004), a former member of the UBC Department of History and a strong supporter of the Arts One program. The students selected for the Straker Prize demonstrate high academic standing, and also exhibit promise and distinction in their contributions to their respective seminars, the Arts One program as a whole, and the wider community.
We are delighted to announce that the Straker Prize winners for the 2024-25 academic year are Sofia Vanegas and Parker Macdonald!
Sofia Vanegas (they/them) is a second-year student in the Faculty of Arts at UBC. They enjoy writing, reading, film-watching, art-making, picture-taking, theatre-going, and adventuring around their city of choice. They are looking to major in either English Literature or Romance Studies.
In 10 words or less, what was your first year experience like?
A rollercoaster: fun, frightening, and over before I knew it.
Looking back, what did you enjoy the most about the Arts One program? What did you find the most challenging?
The wide range of material that Arts One covers was one of the things I was most excited about, and looking back, it’s one of the things I enjoyed the most. It was great to be in an environment that pushed me to delve into these texts – some of which I had been meaning to read for ages – and really examine their significance with the lectures and the seminars. It seems trite to say, but I really feel totally transformed from what I learned over the course of first year. Having the chance to explore all these different ideas in the texts, then hearing my peers’ and professors’ different analyses of those ideas, and finally using all these sources to discover and present my own perspective to the group was invaluable.
The depth and breadth of the learning in the program was also the most challenging aspect for me. Handling the workload and non-stop deadlines really strained my time management skills, but having our seminar groups helped ease the burden, as there was always someone to talk to or ask for help. Although it was very challenging, it created a really cool environment for learning from the texts and professors, as well as fellow students. It feels really rewarding, after it all.
What impressions did you have about Arts One going into the program? Did those impressions change after you finished the program?
I had three immediate impressions. First, it seemed like a great way to push myself to engage in the things I’m passionate about, particularly literature. That’s largely why I decided to go through with it. Second, the idea of the essay critique in tutorial groups immediately intimidated me, as I have always had a difficult time sharing my work and receiving criticism. Lastly, it looked like a lot to do.
In reality, my assumptions were largely correct: Arts One was a great way to go further into something I already knew I enjoyed, and doing so meant constantly doing a lot of work. However, I didn’t anticipate how much Arts One would push me to change and improve. For instance, essay critiques were scary and often left me feeling vulnerable (exactly as I expected), but they were also incredibly useful and turned out to be a great way to bond with my peers. The program encouraged me to go into things that I was already good at, yes, but it also pushed me out of my comfort zone and showed me that I was capable of doing hard and scary things too.
What was the highlight of the year in your Arts One seminar?
My highlight was the people! The students in my seminar made our discussions great. Everyone was so involved and always had something interesting to say, and I think these discussions were instrumental for my growth in Arts One. Our seminar professor, Christine Evans, always had something fascinating to talk about. She was an amazing, fun, and encouraging presence, and I was always excited to go to my seminar to see her. The conversations we as a group had in seminar really lit a fire in me. Hearing all those unique perspectives constantly pushed me to consider ideas from different angles and look at issues with different lenses, and the camaraderie that came from our little cohort made me feel comfortable enough to fully engage and share my own perspectives as well.
It was always a joy to walk into the classroom and greet everyone, complain about the workload, and start sharing our thoughts on the book of the week. Those are some of my favourite memories from the program.
What are your plans for second year and/or beyond? Did being in the program have any influence on your path?
I plan to continue exploring my options, but my two areas of interest at the moment are English Literature and Romance Studies! I have always wanted to study literature, and that was what I planned on doing when I first arrived at UBC. I learned that I really enjoy English Literature, however, Arts One definitely encouraged me to cast a wide net and experiment, leading to me discovering and seriously considering the Romance Studies program here at UBC.
“On the whole, the program reaffirmed my ideas of what I liked and was interested in, and helped me really hone in on specific topics and themes that fascinate me. I feel like I know myself better after Arts One — both as a scholar, and a person over all. I’m very excited for what comes next!”
Parker Macdonald is from Prince Edward Island and was in Dr. Konoval’s seminar. His favourite work he studied is The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. He likes music, Original Pronunciation Shakespeare, and board games. In his spare time, he likes to cook, browse through the UBC Bookstore, or chat with friends.
In 10 words or less, what was your first year experience like?
Lots of dining hall chats with friends and midnight walks
Looking back, what did you enjoy the most about the Arts One program? What did you find the most challenging?
Hands down, the Arts One community was the best part of Arts One. All of the professors are super nice and I think Arts One as a program naturally leads you to develop your own community. It’s really nice to have that support from your peers in giving you feedback, or bouncing ideas off of them, or even hearing a perspective on a work you never would have thought of. I found the essay questions were really nice as well. My friends and I would often try to guess what the questions were before looking at them, but there was always one question that made you look at that week’s work a bit differently or made a connection to a previous work that challenged your understanding of both works. The questions themselves were also fairly open to interpretation. I know for one question about economic development as it was shown in The Interesting Narrative by Olaudah Equiano, someone I know wrote on personal economics and individuals developing wealth for themselves, whereas I had written about slave economies and the economic argument for abolition, so the questions really do allow you to make them your own and explore what interested you about the work you read or watched that week.
I think the depth of the questions is also the reason for the most challenging part of Arts One, which is writing your bi-weekly essay. When the questions you’re given let you explore a topic you’re passionate about or challenge you to think about the work in a new light, it can be difficult to figure out what approach you want to take to the question, as well as try to fit all of the neat analysis and ideas you have into a cohesive 2,000 word essay.
If you had the opportunity to do so, what would you say to your first-year self?
Good is better than perfect. I think part of why I had difficulty with writing essays was that I had all these ideas I wanted to combine into one perfect essay, and I would end up struggling to try to fit it all into 2,000 words. All of the essays that I did well on were those with a simpler premise, but allowed me to really dig in depth on the topic, instead of being scattered all over the place, and trying to connect multiple ideas together.
“I think letting go of perfectionism also lets you feel a bit more content with writing a bad first draft, knowing that it isn’t going to be perfect, and by writing that bad first draft, you can see what ideas you actually want to focus on, instead of the ones you thought you wanted to write on.”
There were many times I had an interesting idea, but I underdeveloped it and wasn’t able to really look into it in my essays, and that’s an opportunity I didn’t have because I spent too much time agonizing over the “perfect essay”.
What’s a topic you started learning in Arts One that you want to continue studying?
I would have to say Ludology, the study of games. I think there’s something really unique about games as a form of media, and the effect they have on us as the audience. Ludology was introduced to us in Arts One with the game Papers, Please, and it was fascinating to see how quickly everyone I knew had become a corrupt border guard in a vaguely soviet state by their second playthrough of the game, not because the game explicitly assigned them that character, but purely through the mechanics of the game. Seeing this homogenization of playstyles and how it reflected Althusser’s ideas on State Ideological Apparatuses was amazing, and I would love to explore games and how we interact with them and with each other through them in the future.
What are your plans for second year and/or beyond? Did being in the program have any influence on your path?
I’m hoping to go into Honours History in my third year. I wouldn’t say that being in Arts One has changed that path, but it has definitely made me more open-minded about looking into other fields of study. We learnt about so many different fields during Arts One (Film Theory, History, Literature, Ludology, Philosophy) that I have definitely become more interested in as a result of Arts One. I think above all, the most significant influence Arts One has had is that it taught me you aren’t restricted by your major. You can contribute to a topic you’re passionate about, as long as you’re willing to put the work in on learning about the field of study and the literature of the topic you want to explore
