My name is Sam “S.R.” Gubitz and I am a PhD candidate at Northwestern University’s Department of Political Science. I am originally from Northwest Indiana, not too far outside Gary. I attended The George Washington University and received a degree in Political Communication. While I may study news media in my career, I try to remove my hobbies from the news as much as possible. I am obsessed with building and collecting model kits, and my apartment is filled with them as a result. My passion, however, is teaching. I have wanted to be a teacher since about the fifth grade, and while that desire has evolved slightly over time to becoming a professor, that goal is always in mind. I am especially interested in teaching students of color and encouraging them to pursue knowledge, much like my mentors did for me in high school and college. Without mentors, I think many struggling students fall through the cracks, like I almost did. I want to stop that from happening to whatever extent possible.