Alec Hartnett, Student
Pet: Dog
When I heard about this class from Lisa I immediately thought how interesting and exciting a class such as this one could be. Although I do love animals, I am not particularly crazy about them, but I do understand the possible connection that can be created between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom. Since being very little I have kept an awareness about an animal's perspective on this world, whether it be from my own dog, my friends' cats or animals at the zoo. Throughout my life I have been surrounded by animals but I have yet to fully begin to understand their perspective and why they do exactly what they do, in terms of behavior but also in terms of forming a connection with another species. When I was little, my brothers and I would run around the neighborhood in Miami looking for lizards, splash through rivers catching cray-fish and newts in Massachusetts, go crabbing in the New York area and fishing in Belize. What I've realized more and more while being with animals is that they can be as complex as human beings and therefore a deep connection can be made. I want to explore how to initiate and nurture such a connection. With mutual respect I feel that animals and humans could be much more involved within each other's lives. We as humans have a natural superior mentality towards other animals, which is understandable because of certain clear advantages, such as our intellects and capabilities to utilize most of the resources available to us in the world, as well as others. However, if we can somehow push that aside and make that sentiment clear to other animals, I believe that a deeper connection could be made between all animals. Therefore I wish to understand more and that is why I am taking this class.

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