This week, The Argus sat down with Jack Vigue ’25, an Admissions Office Senior Intern and PsiU Senior Critic. Vigue told us about his senior thesis, majoring in Italian studies, and his future dreams in advertising.

The Argus: Why do you think you were nominated for WesCeleb?

Jack Vigue: Why do I think I was nominated? Maybe it’s because I’m everywhere. I feel like I do a lot of different things. Maybe because of admissions [office]? I call myself an admissions nepo baby.

A: Tell me more.

JV: Because I was hired the first week to work the front desk, and then I became a tour guide, and now I’m a senior intern, and I still work all three of those jobs, so I’m literally in the admissions office every single day. I’m an admissions warrior. I bought into the whole thing. Sue me.

A: When you say you’re everywhere, what’s everywhere?

JV: Meaning, let’s see, I go from my house to Pi [Cafe] to probably the admissions office. I’m in Fisk [Hall] a lot because I’m an Italian major… [and] PsiU. I like to hop over there to grab a snack every now and then. I joined PsiU my freshman spring because my friend Sita [McGuire ’24] encouraged me to rush, because I was looking for a space on campus to feel like I had a community. And she really brought me in and took me under her wing, which was really important to me. And now I’ve done a lot: I was Treasurer, Rush Chair, and now Senior Critic.

A: What does a Senior Critic do?

JV: Critique. It’s mostly sophomores and juniors that live in the house, and I’ve been in PsiU for four years, so I know how things work. So I offer an institutional way of thinking. Like, there are particular things that we normally do in terms of events, like, we always have a barbecue, for example. And that’s important to tradition, so I had to make sure we had a barbecue.

A: Thinking of these learning opportunities, looking back to freshman year, in what ways have you changed?

JV: I’m still the same. I don’t want to call myself a teacher’s pet, but I’m gonna do it anyway. I don’t care. I like to chat with the professors in a way that’s more friendly and personable, and I feel like I’ve grown in that way to become a little bit more academic and critical in that relationship. I feel like my freshman year and [in] my sociology classes, I was a little bit more goofy and a little bit more carefree in my studies, but now that I’m writing a thesis in the sociology department, I feel like my attention to my academics has shifted to be a little bit more personable.

A: What are you thesisizing?

JV: I’m writing an auto-ethnography about collective memory—a study of a group of people where I am a part of that group. So I’m doing a case study on my family and looking at the day of my grandmother’s death—seeing how we utilize memory and storytelling as foundational factors of the family. How memories are our collective memory of our familial past, and the people of our past is almost like a quasi-religious, sacred thing.

A: How does your family feel about it?

JV: My family loves it. I’m writing about my mom’s side of the family, and they all love to talk. They’re Italian, culturally Italian. None of them speak Italian, but they’re very culturally tied to the south of Italy. And they just love to chat. The stories are just so amazing. My family just has, like, this really robust memory of various people and stories. And I’m interested in seeing how that’s foundational to the strength of the family.

A: You’ve studied Italian at Wesleyan?

JV: I just totally flopped the [Spanish] entry entrance exam for Wesleyan. I got placed as a beginner. And I was like, “Shoot, can’t do that.” So I started Italian my freshman year and loved the class, loved Italian, and then my family was very proud that there was finally someone who was able to speak the mother tongue. And then I went abroad last fall to Bologna, which was really cool. It was hard. It’s a full immersion program. Got to travel around Italy.

A: Thinking to the future, if we could, do you have hopes? Dreams?

JV: Dreams, dreads, freaking out, honestly. I’m from small-town Maine. That’s what I’ve lived, and I’m excited to move away from that. Like most Wesleyan students, I want to go to New York and just figure it out.

A: I know you’re involved in Cardinal Kids, do you have an interest in teaching?

JV: I have an interest in community engagement. I have a passion for learning, but I don’t know if I could teach. I don’t know how much patience I have, if I’m being totally honest. I think my involvement in doing that is more so for the community. But, if I’m being honest, I kind of want to go into advertising. I worked in an advertising agency this summer in Maine, and I love the storytelling aspect of it. That’s what I’m good at. And I’m a great salesman, honestly. The admissions office has taught me well. My philosophy with work is I want to have the best work-life balance that I can. I don’t want my actual job to be intrinsically a part of my life outside of it. I want to be able to step away and be able to enjoy the other fruits that life has to offer.

A: Tell me more about the community with Cardinal Kids.

JV: I love going to the schools. They have such a joy for life—I often forget it out here. It’s very easy to be like, “Alright, we’re just doing it, we’re going to all these things. We’re like, focus, whatever.” But I taught a theater class, and the kids were so amazing and so curious and so creative. It just reminded me: I can be that too, even though I’m not a kid anymore. I have a lot of feelings about, like, going into spaces like this for a short amount of time and then leaving, because it’s such an important part of their lives. It’s hard to make these bonds, and they’re so young, and they have this connection, and then you go on summer break, and then we don’t know if we’ll see them again. So that’s something that’s hard about it, but also rewarding, that we do get to make those connections for people. The students in Middletown [Conn.] don’t all have the best family lives. It’s an after-school program, and a lot of them have to stay after school. And you learn a lot, and you experience a lot, and being exposed to some of [their challenges] is really impactful.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Thomas Lyons can be reached at trlyons@wesleyan.edu.