Senior Reflections: Tina Liu ’19 dances her way through Carleton

Tina Liu ’19 (Eden Prairie, Minn.) knew coming into Carleton that she wanted to continue dancing, and says dance has been “the biggest thing I’ve done and been a part of” at Carleton. From the very beginning, Liu got involved with both student-run dance groups and departmental dance classes on campus. Fall term her first year she joined WHOA! and Experimental Dance Board (EDB) and has been with them ever since. When Jazz & Contemporary Dance Company (JCO) was formed last year, Liu became a founding member.

Joining dance at Carleton gave Liu the opportunity to choreograph her first dances and also expanded her social circle. Liu also learned leadership through her experience as a director for both WHOA! and EDB, “learning how to wrangle different types of groups on campus.” Liu was proud of the work she did to make the dance community at Carleton more inclusive.

Liu is also very appreciative of the different opportunities that Carleotn has given her, such as “taking classes across all different disciplines” and having accessible and inclusive student-run clubs and organizations.

In a series of senior interviews, we asked Liu (computer science) to reflect on life as a Carl and the road to graduation.

How I got to Carleton

I applied to like 13 different schools when I was applying to colleges. I really did not know what I wanted to do—I didn’t’ know what I wanted to major in or anything at all. So it was a broad search. I heard of Carleton because of a close family friend; her older brother went to Carleton. After getting in and narrowing down choices, it was between Carleton and UC Berkeley. I ended up choosing Carleton mainly because of financial aid—I got a lot more from Carleton than I did from Berkeley.

My turning point

I think figuring out what I wanted to do was probably a big one, and that happened pretty early on. I came into Carleton not knowing at all what I wanted to do. I decided on computer science pretty quickly after taking a couple classes. I think there were a couple of classes just thinking-wise that were kind of like opening a door for me. When I took Intro to Women’s and Gender Studies… I think that class had the best discussions that I’ve ever had in a class, and that happened pretty early on. That was a really, really good class for me. I think I learned a lot.

Now that I’m about to leave

I will miss the friends, people, kind of the social sphere—being around people my age. It’s really easy to find people who have similar interests. And dance, obviously. It’s going to be very difficult to find something like this community.