Wyatt Huber

With a mindset of perseverance over pity, taking advantage of the possibilities set in my future has led me to find my true purpose.

My name is Wyatt Huber and I am currently an anthropology major at SSU. Before I arrived at SSU I was stationed quite a bit away from campus in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I honorably served in the United States Coast Guard for 7 years of active enlisted duty and had left one week before hurricane Maria destroyed the island and left many of my friends and shipmates in horrific condition. The struggle of situations like this was a large reason for leaving the only way of life that I had known, to go against all advice from friends and loved ones, and pursue education. Since this decision many opportunities have opened up and has been, in my opinion, the greatest decision I have ever made.

Recently at SSU I have been honored by being accepted into the McNair Scholars Program, which opens the doors to my now ultimate goal which is to receive a PhD and become a professor. This requires a lot of extra hours of work dedicated to research. The research I have chosen aligns with my peculiar passion surrounding the occult and the study of religion, which has led me to select Santa Muerte and her devotees as my topic of research. Aside from working on research for graduate school I am a praxis team member in linguistic anthropology at SSU and help tutor students for ANTH 200 once a week at my office hours.

Despite the vast amounts of positives that have manifested in my life from attending school at SSU, challenges have been present too, and those have stemmed from my prior life as an active duty military member. While maintaining a high GPA, doing research for the McNair Scholars Program, and being a praxis team member, I struggle with PTSD and am legally registered as 90% disabled. This has been a daunting challenge, but one I have faced head-on. The hardest part being the first year of attending SSU when I was not diagnosed.

With a mindset of perseverance over pity, taking advantage of the possibilities set in my future has led me to find my true purpose I believe. That is to hopefully become a professor and educate those who will make a difference. The positives truly outweigh the negatives in every sense when I look at the opportunities and doors the McNair Scholars Program has opened for me at SSU. Being able to pursue real research that will be published at SSU is an honor and something I truly look forward to and is definitely something I could not have done without the support of the professors and students in the anthropology department, especially my mentor Dr. Senghas, who has taught me so much more than I thought possible.