For Malick Thiam ’24, relationships were key to his most impactful experiences at Middlebury. From his Posse Scholarship cohort being like a family to getting real-world guidance in documentary filmmaking from professor James Sanchez, these connections give Thiam the confidence to take on whatever the future brings.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Malick. I am a senior at Middlebury College, majoring in international politics and economics, and I minor in film and media studies. My path to Middlebury was a little non-traditional. I actually decided to come to Middlebury through the Posse Scholarship when my posse and I got matched and were told we were going to Middlebury.

A lot of us were thinking about the culture shock—Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens—very different from Middlebury, Vermont. Having this group of 10 people that we had basically grown into like a mini-family before arriving on campus was a super comforting way to take on this new environment. I really don’t think I would be here dreaming in the way that I’m dreaming without the Posse.

Most documentaries don’t even move us to the abstract for very obvious reasons. Why would you want to do this in these scenes of Fling? What’s the purpose there?

One of the classes I’m taking during my last semester at Middlebury is Documentary Rhetorics. I was super excited after my first day in class when I met Professor James Sanchez. He was an amazing guy with energy I hadn’t felt from many other professors, and he kept things extremely real. He had a long history of working in documentary filmmaking, and at that time, I was working on a documentary I had shot. I approached Professor Sanchez about doing an independent study with him to get some guidance on how to frame a documentary.

Doing an independent project with a professor, in my opinion, should be a requirement for all Middlebury students. The amount of attention that Professor Sanchez has put into this piece we’re working on has been special because I’ve gotten to connect with him on a more personal level, rather than just a professor-student relationship.

I realize how lucky I am to have lived in a place like Middlebury for four years because there’s no other time in my life where I’ll be with 2,500 people my age who share similar passions. It’s exciting to be finishing these four years at Middlebury. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad. I’m a little nervous, but what I feel most right now is excitement. The reason I feel this excitement is that I have a lot of questions about the future, but I also have a lot of naive optimism about what the future will look like.