Kunthea Relinski
Class of 2020
Specialization
Screenwriting
Internship
ShareYourself in Burlington, VT
Favorite Class
Any class with Jim Ellefson!
What sets Champlain’s Professional Writing program apart from programs at other schools?
I think that the Professional Writing major at Champlain is greater in a sense because, at other schools, you can take Journalism as a major, or you can have a Creative Writing major, and nothing really encapsulates all of it. Here, you choose a specialization which you will focus in, but you get to take classes in every different aspect of writing. I think it is really helpful to be knowledgeable in all of it, because maybe down the line you want to change your career path, or you’re asked to do something that you didn’t focus on in school. But here, you get to learn about all of it and the professors really encourage you to defer outside of your comfort zone and take classes that you wouldn’t normally take. I don’t ever take any classes in editing and publishing because that’s not really my realm, but it’s good to know about technical writing and all the grammatical skills and things like that.
Can you tell us about The Grind?
The Grind is the weekly open mic that we have every Wednesday in Fireside Lounge. People can come do stand up, people can sing, people can read poetry. I have been the host for three years now. It’s a really good community to take a break from your work every Wednesday night, eat food, drink tea, and hang out with your friends. We are a welcoming community, and I think it’s given me a lot of confidence in myself as a person. I’ve fostered such a great community there, and everyone bolsters each other up no matter your ability and whatever you’re trying to perform. It’s just very encouraging and inclusive.
Every week I open the show with a set of three songs on my guitar, but other people do stand up, their own or something that they’ve seen on TV. A lot of people recite original poetry, stand up poems, spoken word, or just normal poetry. We have one person that plays the violin, some people bring their DJ decks and will play a set. We have a lot of variety. One person brings her saxophone sometimes.
What extracurriculars are you involved in?
I’m the Director of Communications for the SGA. The SGA is the Student Government Association, and my role as Director of Communications is to work with the President and the Vice President to make sure that we are communicating well with the student body, but also creating a really good relationship with the entire administration of Champlain. So, we promote different events on social media. A few weeks ago, I hosted a candy grams event where people could come into the office and interact with us, and we could send free candy for Valentine’s Day. We also tried to set up a giving tree for holidays where you can give back to our community in Burlington as a whole.
I love my role there because I get to interact both with the administration, the student body, and I get to work a lot internally with the SGA. Being on the SGA cabinet has taught me a lot about applying my writing skills to my position there. Being able to work with the community, to write letters to the community, work with social media. Being on SGA has really advanced all of the skills that I’m learning here and makes sure that I’m able to apply them well.
