OSU Voices

Adrian Borycki is majoring in women, gender and sexuality studies and will graduate in 2017. Throughout their years at OSU, they have served as a PROMISE intern and been involved with the Disability Pride Network and Diversity and Cultural Engagement, specifically the cultural resource centers (CRCs). For two years, Borycki worked as the publications coordinator/communications representative for the Pride Center. “The CRCs have provided a space to not only build community and be involved in what is happening on campus, but also as a place where I felt that I could develop my identity around others who were interested in that same personal growth,” they said.

Q. What are three random things about you?
I am fairly certain I was born left handed, but was only ever taught to use my right hand.
I believe in ghosts.
Last year for Halloween I dressed up as a “sexy piece of pizza.”

Q. What advice would you give to a new OSU student?
Take at least one fun, interesting and/or non-major course each term. It’ll be worth it and will help break up your schedule.

Q. What Oregon State experience took you by surprise and why?
My first football game as a freshman! I attended it my first term at OSU with someone I was dating at the time, and they and a huge group of our mutual friends showed up with their faces all painted in Beaver colors. There were so many people there, both from the university and the Corvallis community, who showed up to support the team.

Q. What is your favorite memory at OSU?
Before I graduated high school, I came to campus with a friend to attend the Spring Drag Show. It was my first experience being in space that celebrated gender expression and LGBTQ+ people, and I fell in love with the theatricality and freedom of all the performers and the raunchy artistry of the drag queens and kings on stage. I found out years later that I saw my now best friend and roommate for the first time that night, on stage and performing.

Q. What makes OSU special?
Oregon State University is unique in that I feel it’s almost simultaneously a “large” and “small” university. You can pass hundreds of strangers on their way to class on any weekday, but also happen to see 10 of your best friends on your way to a 20-person class. I come from a small town, so that personal, cozy feeling helps the campus feel less daunting.

Q. What do you like about living in Corvallis?
When the seasons change in Corvallis, I am always astounded by how gorgeous the campus is — year after year.

Q. What class have you enjoyed most at Oregon State?
My sophomore year I took Dinosaur Biology out of curiosity and loved it. At the time I was a pre-med student, and it was interesting to see how my childhood love of dinosaurs meshed with the principles I was learning within my anatomy and physiology courses.

Q. Why did you choose your major?
The WGSS (women, gender and sexuality studies) program focuses on the ways in which gender, culture and history intersect our social identities and shape our experiences, particularly in the ways that the histories of these interactions create and reinforce inequitable power structures. I had always been interested and engaged in social justice and activism, and come from a hard sciences background where I was really focused in human science and behavior. WGSS courses, which I had taken as electives, gave me a historical and social context for the ways we move throughout the world, and I was incredibly passionate about the material and the potential that I had with this knowledge to make social change.

Q. How do you plan to use your degree?
My career focus is to become a licensed psychological therapist, and a WGSS degree gives me a unique perspective through which to interact with patients and empathize with their experiences. Currently, my hope is to become a therapist specializing in either chronic pain or gender therapy.

Q. Has your time at OSU changed the way you think?
I think that being in university has shifted what I consider traditional “adulthood” to be and what, exactly, we are expected to do with our futures. It has been a continual process of self-growth and discovery for me.