Meet Jonathon Burne

(photo courtesy of Susmita Paul ’16)

Jonathon Burne, class of 2017, is from San Pedro, California. Although he has only been here for a month and a half, Jonathon is already super involved on campus. Among many things, he is the Williams liaison for Questbridge and an Admissions Ambassador. Jonathon is not yet sure what he will be majoring in but among his considerations are Astrophysics with a double in Philosophy, International Relations with a concentration in the Middle East, or Music with a double in Cognitive Science.

How has your transition to Williams been?

Holistically, it has been harder than expected but I think it is because I had this perception of myself in college that turned out to be much different from reality. I thought I’d be more independent and ready to start a significant part of life but it’s harder to jump in to that than I thought it would be. It’s also hard to have to put up with people like Raquel Rodriguez, haha.  

Haha yeah sorry about that. What do you mean by “significant part of your life”? What did you envision before coming to college?

I guess the direct application of the past 18 years of my life-everything has led to this point. While here, I almost feel like I struggle under the pressure of my own expectations. 

Was becoming the Questbridge liaison part of what you envisioned for this new phase of your life?

Kind of. The expectation there was multifaceted. I had a “selfless” reason and a “selfish” reason. The selfless one was that I wanted to give back to the Questbridge community that supported me during my difficult college application process and to the Quest scholars in general. The selfish one is that I wanted to make sure that not only I, but others in my class, would have a community when starting college, a community that would be able to relate to each other because of similar circumstances. I didn’t have this in high school. Most people when they get to college want diversity, and I do too but at the same time, I was also interested in finding people I could relate to, and I found that with Quest.

So what exactly is Questbridge?

Questbridge is a scholarship organization that hopes to provide educational opportunities to low income high-achieving students who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity. Right? Haha, something like that. 

On top of that you’re also an Admissions Ambassador. Could you tell us a bit about what it is and why you were interested in getting that job?

As an Admissions Ambassador, I help coordinate the Windows on Williams (W.O.W) programs. These are programs that try and give students the opportunity to experience Williams. It is primarily for those who normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to visit. Williams flies them here. It’s a 4-day program that takes place over a weekend. Admissions Ambassadors, along with staff from the Admissions office, schedule events to showcase Williams for the pre-frosh and to help them realize whether or not Williams would be a good fit for them and help them visit classes. We also do this for Previews. The reason I wanted to be an Admissions Ambassador is mainly because of my experience with the Admissions Ambassadors last year. They helped me a lot and I want to be there for those who probably don’t get much help from their high schools.

What do you miss most from home?

Hmm… I feel like most of these answers have been pretty deep so I’m just going to say the ocean. I just miss surfing, spending all day at the beach and not having to worry about anything except when the next wave would come. Yeah, definitely. The first thing I’m going to do when I get back is go to the beach and sleep there for a week. 

You also have a musical side to you. Which instruments can you play?

I can play guitar, piano, drums, bass guitar, penny whistle, trumpet, and I would like to learn the violin. I technically learned how to play the penny whistle first-I was a beast, I could play jingle bells on it, but in actuality I learned how to play piano first. I started when I was either 3 or 4 years old, but I had a 15 year block where I moved around a lot and didn’t have the opportunity to keep practicing it until now. I am trying to relearn it and am realizing how hard it is. I learned guitar next which I picked up in middle school. It’s kind of funny because although I was taking classical guitar classes and I was in an ensemble, I thought it was boring and I don’t know what exactly happened but I eventually started to get into music on a much deeper level and it opened a world for me-I started investing myself into it. I actually started with guitar hero and my dad kept suggesting I learn how to play the real thing instead and I resisted for a long time. I learned bass guitar soon after and it wasn’t until either freshman or sophomore year of high school that I started to get interested in playing drums. I was interested in the role the drummer played in bands and rhythms in general. I would constantly tap my fingers on my desk and finally it annoyed the hell out of my classmates and they suggested I learn how to play drums. Since drum sets are so expensive I would make weekly trips to Guitar Center and spend about an hour and a half playing on their drums. It wasn’t until my friend got a drum set of his own that I was able to practice more and I found my own style. I’m trying to figure out if I can get involved with percussion instruments here. But that’s still a work in progress. 

What is your favorite thing about Williams?

I would say my favorite thing about Williams is its originality. I think, especially compared to schools of similar academic quality and rigor, Williams stands out 100%. The atmosphere of Williams is unique-specifically what it comes down to is what people care about here. I’m going out on a limb here and am speaking from my experiences, but people here care about learning. I think it’s very hard to find people like that at other schools, especially the Ivies. For most people, if they enjoy learning it’s because they view it as a gateway to future success. But here I get the sense that people are here because they like to learn more than they like to compete. 

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