Her plan originally was to never go to college. Both indecisive and reluctant, Hunter Bastan looked towards a possible future in either beauty school or the Marines before ever considering getting a traditional college education. But one letter changed all of that for the Providence native. What Bastan found in her mailbox filled her with a brimming sense of certainty and potential: she had been accepted into URI’s Talent Development program. This program, established in 1968 in reaction to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., admits a number of Rhode Island high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds into an intensive summer term before they start up their fall semester of freshman year. The TD program primarily consists of students of color, contributing greatly to URI’s diverse student body population. With this acceptance, Bastan saw a future paved for her, and she was ready to take to the path.
Like most college students, nonetheless, Bastan’s journey did not end upon entering her freshman year. She found herself torn between two majors, a schism growing inside her. “I was originally a Computer Science major because I loved everything about technology and wanted to know more about it,” Bastan states, “However, I was also deeply fascinated by how society reacts to the law, why crimes are committed, and I wanted to gain more knowledge about the criminal justice system.” With this in mind, Bastan switched her major from Computer Science to Sociology, going even further to take on a minor in Digital Forensics, a choice, she adds, that helped her pursue both her love of technology as well as her fascination with the criminal justice system.
Bastan had at last found her niche at URI, recalling one experience above all that further exacerbated her adoration for the topic. “In my SOC/CCJ 476 class, the professor that I had taught me the good, the bad, and the ugly of the criminal justice system,” she explains, “On the first day of class, our professor asked for us to define policy, before then explaining the six stages of policy development. From there on out, I was curious as to the how, what, why, and if there was anything that could change public policies.” As for the future, Bastan aspires to use her B.S. in Sociology and minor in Digital Forensics to pursue a career as a digital forensic analyst after graduation, and she thanks URI for giving her the skills necessary to succeed in her chosen field. To all the new students coming to URI’s College of Arts and Sciences, Bastan advises that they use their resources, stating, “Talk to your advisor and professors, you never know what they can offer. There are programs and scholarships I had never heard of until I went to my advisor and a few professors. The information they gave me truly helped me succeed all the way to the finish line and opened a lot of doors for me.”
~Written by Chase Hoffman ’21, Writing & Rhetoric and Anthropology Double Major