Episode 9: How art drives scientific discovery
In this week’s episode, Vidal Arroyo, who's pursuing a PhD in biophysics, takes us through his journey to Stanford as a first-generation college student and his passion for biophysics, poetry, and music. He opens up about mental health, his faith, and the importance of creativity and joy in science.
Guest
Photo by Micaela Go
Vidal Arroyo (2022 cohort), from Las Flores, California, is pursuing a PhD in biophysics at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He graduated from Chapman University with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, and earned a master's degree in statistics from the University of Oxford. As a humanitarian-scientist, Vidal aspires to pioneer new scientific frontiers in order to bring joy and healing to others. He has performed computational biology research in labs at Baylor College of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Oxford Big Data Institute.
At Chapman, he founded Chapman STEMtors in order to inspire the next generation of scientists among underprivileged students. He is Chapman University’s first Rhodes Scholar, a PepsiCo Cesar Chavez Latino Scholar, and a recipient of the Cecil F. Cheverton Award at Chapman.
Hosts
Imagine A World is hosted by Willie Thompson, left, and Taylor Goss, right. Photo by Micaela Go.
Taylor Goss (2021 cohort), from Lacassine, Louisiana, is pursuing an MA in music, science, and technology and an MPP in public policy at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He graduated with college honors from Louisiana State University with bachelor's degrees in music and entrepreneurship. Taylor aspires to connect musicians and policymakers, using the arts to communicate societal needs and provoke policy change.
Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), from Griffin, Georgia, is pursuing a master's degree in business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in Chinese Studies. He intends to create and contribute to organizations using the arts as a conduit for community building and intercultural education.
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss. The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson, along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Special thanks to Sanaa Alam, Rachel Desch, Sydney Hunt, Chan Leem, Kara Schechtman, Takondwa Priscilla Semphere, and Rahul Thapa.
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Vidal Arroyo:
I am just consistent with this. I think the kind of science, we'll be doing 20 years from now will be way better just by the fact that I'm taking a little bit of time away from science, sort of counterintuitive. You're taking time away from the lab to grow, but by the fact that you're growing, you're actually going to be able to stay in the game longer and be much better skill-wise, intellectual-wise, things like that, because all good science starts with good ideas.
And I think if you cultivate your mind in such a way and have ways of growing intellectually, you can actually engineer a system in such a way where you can consistently generate ideas and know that you're going to consistently generate better ideas across time. And as long as you have enough space in your schedule to act upon the best of those ideas consistently, it's like an algorithm to just becoming the best scientist you could be for as long as possible.
Once I realized the value of that... And Knight-Hennessy sort of forcing that on me initially, but then after that, me actually intentionally creating space-
Taylor Goss:
You started to welcome it.
Vidal Arroyo:
You started to welcome it, yes.
My name is Vidal Arroyo and I'm a member of the 2022 Knight-Hennessy cohort doing a PhD in Biophysics. I imagine a world where work is art.
Taylor Goss:
Welcome to the Imagine a World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy scholar community of graduate students spanning all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability.
In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they're doing to bring it to life.
Today, we're speaking with Vidal Arroyo, a PhD student in biophysics. During our conversation, you'll hear Vidal's experience as a first gen college student exploring biophysics, poetry and music, managing and coping with depression, making dad jokes, and so much more.
Willie Thompson:
Hey, what's up y'all? Welcome to another episode of the Imagine a World podcast. I'm your co-host, Willie Thompson.
Taylor Goss:
Hey, Willie.
Willie Thompson:
Hey. Y'all know who we are at this point. I'm not Taylor, I'm Willie. That's Taylor.
Taylor Goss:
I'm Taylor.
Willie Thompson:
Yep. And we are joined by a very special guest today in Vidal Arroyo. You already heard the Imagine a World statement, but Vidal, how you doing?
Vidal Arroyo:
I'm good, man.
Willie Thompson:
Welcome to Imagine a World.
Vidal Arroyo:
I'm doing good. Thank you for asking.
Willie Thompson:
Of course. We were having a lot of free episode conversation. Taylor, what was the question you were going to ask that I so rudely interrupted before we started?
Taylor Goss:
Oh no, that's okay. We were talking about hair because we were so impressed by your goatee this afternoon, Willie.
Willie Thompson:
Oh, I thought we were talking about your beard and your hair initially.
Taylor Goss:
Well-
Willie Thompson:
That was weird.
Taylor Goss:
It got to my beard and hair because there's a lot of it.
Willie Thompson:
It is nice.
Taylor Goss:
But I was about to ask Vidal, I think the first photo I saw of you, you had a pompadour thing going on. That's what it was really impressive.
Willie Thompson:
I had no idea what's going on.
Taylor Goss:
You had on your Knight-Hennessy photo, you have a swanky suit and a pompadour. Have you had a lot of hairstyle changes over the years?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. Well this is a funny story. Growing up, so my parents, my dad's from Spain, my mom's from Mexico, and they both have beautiful hair. My mom has beautiful red hair. My dad still full head of hair. He's like 50 something.
Willie Thompson:
Lucky, crazy.
Vidal Arroyo:
Great genetics. Great genetics. And growing up, they were always big on us growing out our hair. Like middle school-
Taylor Goss:
Oh, look at that.
Vidal Arroyo:
... I used to have hair looking like Taylor, looking like a little lion. You know what I'm saying? Full on mane status.
Taylor Goss:
I'll take that.
Vidal Arroyo:
No beard, but a little yellow. You already know. And then I think starting in high school, so I started wrestling in high school and that wasn't flying. Unfortunately, with wrestling you have to put your hair in one of those nets.
Willie Thompson:
Like a fish net?
Vidal Arroyo:
Like a kind of a fishnet thing, kind of wrapping over so it's not getting in the way when you wrestle, and I just wasn't about to do that. So that's when I started... It just wasn't the vibe. It wasn't the vibe. I did shorter hair up until, yeah, maybe out of college. Then I started growing it a little bit longer.
I think the pompadour thing made sense at the time when... Man, my hair just grew way too fast. And when I moved out here, I'm from South Orange County and the haircuts down there are pretty cheap. Maybe like 30 bucks or 25 bucks for a good barber. Up here, you find a good barber?
Taylor Goss:
Dude.
Willie Thompson:
What?
Taylor Goss:
I know.
Vidal Arroyo:
It's wild. It's wild.
Taylor Goss:
It's quite expensive.
Willie Thompson:
First off, you said 25, 30 bucks for haircut. That's cheap?
Vidal Arroyo:
That's with tip too.
Willie Thompson:
With the tip. That's cheap?
Taylor Goss:
Yeah. I could pay that in Louisiana. Yeah, that's cheap. That's what I consider to be cheap.
Willie Thompson:
I got to y'all to Georgia.
Vidal Arroyo:
It's the long hair then. It's the long hair.
Willie Thompson:
Really?
Taylor Goss:
Even in Louisiana, I would pay 25 bucks for a haircut.
Willie Thompson:
$25.
Taylor Goss:
For a long haircut.
Willie Thompson:
It's got to be inflation. It's got to be inflation. Well, I don't have hair. Well, I don't have a hair top, but my hair cuts like 15 bucks, bro.
Vidal Arroyo:
I think also part of it too is I had a good barber down there, shout to my boy, Gusto, if you're listening to this. Probably not, he's going to be-
Taylor Goss:
We'll put him in the show notes.
Willie Thompson:
Yeah, absolutely.
Vidal Arroyo:
You could tag him or something, but not had a good barber. And that's part of it too, is when you go to a good barber, you have a good conversation with them. That's the whole experience. You know what I'm saying?
Taylor Goss:
It's a relationship.
Vidal Arroyo:
It's a relationship. It's a relationship. When I came out here, the barber was fine. It wasn't like the conversation was okay, but the price has just doubled. You know what I mean? Double-
Willie Thompson:
Really?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah.
Willie Thompson:
It's like 50, 60 bucks for a haircut.
Vidal Arroyo:
50, 60 bucks with tip now. My hair grows so fast that I would have to get it cut every two weeks or something crazy. I'm now looking at this like, all right, are we about to budget a hundred bucks a month just for haircuts? I just wasn't feeling it. I started to shave my head. Yeah, it's funny. I'm actually trying to grow it out now. You guys are kind of the awkward phase.
Willie Thompson:
I don't think it's awkward, bro. No, it's a nice solid line.
Vidal Arroyo:
It's a little awkward for me, but it's a little longer. It's a little longer.
Willie Thompson:
Wait, it's awkward because it's longer?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. Because I'm used to either it's got to be kind of close to skin, real, real short. This, I kind of feel like I'm a moppet. You know what I mean? You got a good centimeters and half centimeters, for me personally.
Willie Thompson:
Oh, interesting.
Vidal Arroyo:
You know what I mean?
Willie Thompson:
It looks good on you.
Vidal Arroyo:
No, I appreciate it. I think it's also just got that good round noggin, so just sort of equidistant. It's like your head just keeps getting on bigger, but I'm actually trying to grow it out like you bro, try to see if I get that mane back, because then I can save on haircuts. But then also what I realized with this thing that since my hair grew back so fast, I would've to shave it every other day.
Willie Thompson:
I see.
Taylor Goss:
I see.
Vidal Arroyo:
And I was like, okay, I'm not going to go spending a hundred bucks a month. I can spend 20 minutes every other day to shave my head. I'm like, this is also dumb. We're still searching. We're still searching for that equilibrium-
Taylor Goss:
For the happy medium?
Vidal Arroyo:
Happy medium.
Willie Thompson:
What are you going to do about the beard and mustache? Are you going to let that grow?
Vidal Arroyo:
I'm going to try to see. I think I used to do a clean shave, but again, it likes to grow and there's some interesting colors down there. Like I said, my mom's a redhead. The red shows up in the beard and I feel like people are like, if I didn't wear a beard, people wouldn't know my mom's a redhead. Not saying that I need to wear a beard for people to know my mom's a redhead. But it's like rare genetic trait. I think it's kind of cool, so I might as well as well flex.
Willie Thompson:
Well look, we're really excited to have you on today for the pod. You have an amazing Imagine a World statement as all of our guests do. But before we get into that Imagine a World statement, we'd like to know the world you were born into and have experienced thus far. With that being said, where are you from and what was your journey here?
Vidal Arroyo:
As far as where I come from, from Southern California. I was born in San Clemente. Have you guys ever been down to SoCal?
Willie Thompson:
Yeah.
Taylor Goss:
We spent a little time in LA.
Vidal Arroyo:
Spent a little time in LA.
Willie Thompson:
I haven't been much in LA, that's about it.
Vidal Arroyo:
Orange County's north of San Diego, south of Los Angeles. And it feels a little bit kind of 50-50 of both, but also depending on where you're at. In Orange County, it can feel more like LA or more like San Diego, sort of like a gradient.
Where I was born in San Clemente is South Orange County, and I still grew up in South Orange County, so it was more like the beachy side. My dad worked at the skateboarding company, my mom was a dancer. Pretty, I don't know, I don't want to say stereotypical.
Taylor Goss:
That's kind of very cool.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, yeah, I know it's trippy. It's hard to have stereotypes in Orange County, because it's so diverse. But I would say definitely the skateboarding thing was pretty on track of, yeah, you're definitely from California at least, but Orange County specifically.
I grew up there and honestly, what got me to Stanford was science, but I didn't discover science until college. When I was a little kid, I was oscillating between wanting be a musician and wanting to go to the military. Because San Clemente is really close to Camp Pendleton, which is where a lot of Marines train, Navy Seals train. Growing up I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to be a Navy Seal or be a Marine."
Willie Thompson:
Join the Marine band.
Vidal Arroyo:
And if that doesn't work out, you try to start a band that's sort of like who my conditions that was.
Willie Thompson:
Talk about two ends of a spectrum.
Vidal Arroyo:
Exactly. And I think science, I sort of found a happy medium between the two of someone that's kind of gritty, but then also someone that's creative.
Willie Thompson:
Okay, great.
Taylor Goss:
I like that description. I was wondering how you were going to swing that. That's just great.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. I still think it's inside me a little bit, but sort of flexing out in different ways.
Taylor Goss:
I'm curious about the music part. What are your roots there? I know that your grandfather was a blues musician, am I right?
Vidal Arroyo:
I definitely lucked down the genetic lottery there. My grandpa-
Taylor Goss:
The hair, the music. I mean, bro, it's genetic jackpot, bro.
Vidal Arroyo:
Unfortunately, my grandpa, he was balding so he didn't get the hair and the music. Hopefully I can keep both intact, you know what I mean? He was a blues musician and actually pastor, and he was based down in upper San Diego, but also lived in Temecula, Murrieta, which is more like inland SoCal.
I think just growing up, he was just my role model. I just thought he was the coolest dude. He'd always wear leather jackets to church. I was like, "Dude, this guy out here is wearing leather jackets to church."
Taylor Goss:
Wow, what a rebel.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yet, it's also funny, he had this particular leather jacket. It's not like a biker jacket, it feels like an old man's '70s leather jacket, but he would always rock it. It was like his favorite jacket.
And I just looked up to him and thought it'd be cool to be a musician. But do you know, to be honest, I didn't like playing my instrument. I didn't like-
Taylor Goss:
Which was?
Vidal Arroyo:
I started on guitar. Actually, well, bass guitar and then guitar. But for me what it was, I didn't like the practicing part of it. I liked making music. I liked fiddling on it. I liked listening to a song and trying to dance in between the notes. But as far as actually looking at sheet music and practicing, I was just like, damn, this isn't for me.
Taylor Goss:
Have you heard the joke about guitar players in sheet music?
Vidal Arroyo:
No.
Taylor Goss:
Well, there's one way to make a guitar player be quiet, put a piece of sheet music.
Vidal Arroyo:
Maybe that just means I'm a guitarist, not a musician. But that's neither here nor there. This was up until middle school, I was thinking these two things. The military was out of the picture, but also the military for me was like, all right, I should probably do that. If anything else, I try. It doesn't fall through.
Just because there's still a lot of things I needed to explore, I wasn't one of those people that I knew the military was the only thing I could do that made me happy. When I went into high school, what the catalyst for me with discovering science was I started wrestling actually, joining the wrestling team. I grew up doing martial arts, but didn't do any sports before that.
And the motivation at the time was just that I was an 8th grader living his best life, getting a little husky, playing video games all day. I do my video, you know what I mean? And I was like, "You know what? I don't think this is sustainable." You know what I mean? I don't want to just play video games all day and whatever. I want to see what I'm capable of.
So that was the impetus for joining the wrestling team and things just steamrolled from there.
Taylor Goss:
But wait, what's the connection between wrestling and science?
Vidal Arroyo:
This is how it rolled out. I joined the wrestling team and my first year I joined it, I was like 170 pounds, little to no muscle, just again, living my best life. And by the end of it, I was 130. And this is also not weight cutting. This is 40 pounds of fat loss in the first year. I remember maybe a little bit muscle mass, but mostly fat.
And I just saw my body change and then my confidence changed as a result of that too. And I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, I wasn't genetically destined to be chubby. I just was lazy. You know what I mean? Once I sort of realized how much did my body changed, I just became really fascinated with the human body, fascinated with what it's capable of. And I think that naturally, I started becoming more interested in science stuff and I had a lot of athlete friends who wanted to become physical therapists.
That's what I thought. Like, oh, there's a connection for this to sports. There's a connection for this to the body. And so due to positive peer pressure, they motivated me to apply to college. College wasn't on my radar before that because none of my family went to college. Like I said, I lucked out on the music lottery, but I wouldn't say I lucked out on the educational pedigree lottery.
Once they said, "Oh, you want to become PT? You should go apply to college." I was like, "All right." This was junior year of high school. Up to this point, I didn't really try in school. I think if I would've gone back, I probably would've tried to just try harder in school earlier, because it just would've opened up more doors.
But things turned out, I was able to go to local school near I was, Chapman, and I was able to find a way to make it work financially for me too, which is really big, being first generation, not having college funds saved and things like that.
I basically decided to go to Chapman 30, 40 minutes from where I was. And I decided to commute by train because I didn't have a car at the time. So that was my basically go for the next four years was-
Taylor Goss:
Every time you went to campus?
Vidal Arroyo:
Every single day was commute by train. I had this little routine worked out with my mom where she worked really close to where the train station was. And so she would drop me off at the train station before I would hop on the train. So that'd be about 15 minutes, dropped me off in the morning, about a 30-minute train ride up to Orange from Laguna Gal, which is where I was being dropped off. And then about a 15-minute walk or if I was really ambitious, little skateboard track up to campus.
It was like a total, about an hour one way. But I was able to work on the train, make it work, and my mom's a boss, so I was able to talk with her and have some good conversations on those rides. So that's sort of what my little routine was. And then sort of do the inverse on the way backwards.
Willie Thompson:
And at Chapman, you followed your interest in science and was a double major in biochemistry and molecular biology?
Vidal Arroyo:
For people that apply to med school. It's a double major, but it's one degree. Yeah, it's one degree. I had a friend of mine, I'm not going to name him, where he was really trying to get in some good medical schools and he listed them as two different majors and they're like, "Not a fan. We're getting one BS for this. Come on, this ain't adult major."
But I didn't start as biochemistry. I actually started as kinesiology.
Willie Thompson:
Oh yeah, kinesiology.
Vidal Arroyo:
Because I was still thinking PT exercise, science. And my first year I had to take, because the program was very pre-professional at Chapman. A lot of exercise science programs, you'll start off learning exercise science, high-level stuff. The people at Chapman were very stern of like, "Hey, you want to apply these grad schools? Just so you know, these grad schools require you to take chemistry, biology, physics, calculus, at least a year of all those and other stuff too."
And so they made us do that first. And I guess in this case, it might've been slightly to the chagrin of the kinesiology department, because that's what lost me. I actually liked those classes more than the intro kinesiology classes. I was taking this intro kinesiology class. It was cool, but it was too high level for me. I didn't really get to dig deep and understand why are these things working the way they are.
Where in the biochemistry or the chemistry classes, they were getting real deep. They were getting crazy deep. And I was able to understand. I didn't feel like I was memorizing, I feel like I was understanding. And I think that was what appealed to me about it. And then by the end of the year, I was like, I don't know if I want to do this PT thing.
What I decided to do, I wouldn't recommend this to everybody, but this was my way of deciding whether I wanted to stay in biochemistry or kinesiology was the next year, I took organic chemistry, which is supposed to be a weeder class for people that are sort of more chemistry or biochemistry, things like that. And then I also took a whole year of physiology and anatomy. And I basically said, "Okay, we're going to take these classes. If I like the organic chemistry more, this is a weeder class. If I somehow I like this weeder class, I'll stick in it and I'll try to find a way to switch majors. But if I like the exercise science stuff, I'll switch. I'll just keep my major."
And so it just turned out that first semester that I did that, the anatomy class, there's a lot of memorization. It's kind of the same thing. The physiology, again, there's more mechanism, but I still felt like I was kind of memorizing in the mechanism. I still didn't really know, okay, why exactly is this happening this way? Where in organic chemistry, I don't know what it was, but somehow this weeder class became my favorite class and I just sunk into it.
And I decided after that, man, I love this chemistry stuff too much to just stay here. So that's why I switched to biochemistry. And actually it's funny, later I ended up becoming a TA for the organic chemistry. Initially, it was a weeder class I was trying to decide a major on, and then I ended up teaching it for the next two years, which is really funny.
Willie Thompson:
You became the gardener.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Willie Thompson:
And so being at Chapman, and you spend those years as a Panther, and then you go off to become your university's first Rhodes Scholar. Speaking of the lottery you were just talking about, if you were unaware of the educational lottery, you start hitting the jackpot at that point when it comes to getting a Rhodes scholarship. And what was that process of even knowing what a Rhodes was and being a part of that community by the time that you graduated from Chapman?
Vidal Arroyo:
This is, to this day, I think still one of the craziest stories in my life. At Chapman, there's this term in Mandarin, I'm probably going to pronounce the tones wrong. I know the word, the way you say it's called Longmen and it's-
Willie Thompson:
Oh, Longmen, yeah.
Vidal Arroyo:
You know what it means, right? Something along the lines. It's basically used in reference. My understanding is the term refers to this thing called a dragon gate, but there's a story behind it, like this koi who's swimming upstream, and then at some point, he gets to the top of the waterfall and becomes a dragon. I don't know if kois could actually swim up waterfalls when everybody falls, but this story is something-
Taylor Goss:
I thought that was a standard thing, but...
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. This is how dragons came about. You have a koi, there's just a koi that's tenacious enough to swim up dragon. But then also there's a level of luck to it too. Somehow you're lucky enough to somehow time it exactly right when you're passing over, when there's a little crevice of water not flowing down, so you can get right above the waterfall.
I think the Rhodes experience felt like that a lot for me because up to that point, to be honest, up until the summer of my junior year, I was not thinking about Rhodes. I was actually interested in doing a Fulbright potentially in Israel at the time, because computational biology is a big thing, really strong there. And my family at the time thought that I might've had some Jewish roots. I thought that might've been interesting too.
Willie Thompson:
And that would've been a research in Fulbright-
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, it would've been a research Fulbright for a year. But when I started setting application for that, I was talking with the fellowships person. They were like, "Your CV is looking pretty strong. Do you want to consider some of these others?" And I was offended first. I'm like, "What are you saying? I'm too good for Fulbright. I want to go to Israel." But she was really adamant, "I think you should give these other ones a shot." And so-
Taylor Goss:
Was this Dr. Julye Bidmead?
Vidal Arroyo:
This is Julye Bidmead.
Taylor Goss:
Okay.
Vidal Arroyo:
You know Julye?
Taylor Goss:
I don't know her personally-
Willie Thompson:
But we do our research.
Taylor Goss:
But we do our research.
Vidal Arroyo:
You do? Okay, you do your research. There you go. So yes, this was Dr. Bidmead, and she sort of put this thing on my table and just... She didn't force me, but she was like, "The world is your oyster. You can give it a shot you want." And so at the time I started looking this thing, and you can sort of get caught up in the aura of a lot of these things. And I was like, "Man, Rhodes, this looks kind of hard. This looks hard."
Willie Thompson:
In a good way or a bad way?
Vidal Arroyo:
In both. It's like both. This could be really cool if I got this. It's almost impossible I get this. But also it's like, this is almost impossible I get this. I might just be wasting... For instance, at that time, Rhodes would let us apply with up to eight letters of recommendation. And knowing my personality, I knew that I would max out on that. I'm like, "Am I about to ask eight professors to write a letter for me for this scholarship that I have pretty much no chance of getting?"
And what ended up happening is that at the time I was very proactive on LinkedIn, and I had this crazy idea, what if I somehow reach out to someone who won a Rhodes from the previous year on LinkedIn, who I feel like is a fit? Somehow, maybe some underdog from another school.
Willie Thompson:
Someone that wasn't building, I don't know, micro gardens in Tunisia.
Taylor Goss:
Yeah, yeah, the Rhodes mad lib.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, someone that I could feel like, man, if this person had a chance, maybe I have a chance. I connected with this dude, Noah Barbieri, and I just had a hard talk with him and just asked him, "Dude, this is one thing I'm doing. My fellowship advisor thought I should apply for this, but I don't know." And once he just dug deeper into my story, he was... At first he was surprised I was taking the train for two hours a day up to this point because our CVs look pretty much identical. And he is like, "You've been wasting two hours a day on the train and you have the same CV as me. What the heck?" I was like, "Yeah, man, that's what I had to do."
But I didn't see it as a big thing. But he thought that was a big deal. And then I think I also was able to tell him a bit more about family struggles. My parents had really a lot of financial hardships growing up, and it affected my family. And my dad was depressed for over a year, and there's a point where he was considering suicide, and that really affected me too.
And so once he just heard a lot of these things, he felt like a lot of people think that when you apply for something like a Rhodes, that they're really just looking at your CV. And I think they do use that as a way to filter out. But I think in terms of selecting scholars, I think they, in that point of the selection process, tend to gravitate to people that have all these other, I don't want to say accomplishments, but all these other things beyond their CV. I wasn't going to put on my CV that I was commuting two hours a day, but that was a part of my story that helped put some context into it.
Once you heard these things-
Taylor Goss:
Connected the dots, if you will?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yes, sir.
Taylor Goss:
Sounds familiar.
Vidal Arroyo:
I have no idea where I heard that from. No idea where I heard that from. Once he said that, and he just said, "I'm going to make you apply for the Rhodes," I didn't even know what he was going to use to make me apply for. Just him saying that, I was like, "Yes, sir. I'm starting my essays now." You know what I mean? So that's what started the journey.
But man, as far as going back the whole Longmen story, as far as actually crossing into actually getting it, for me, that's actually where I really felt like I started to step more into my faith. Up until this point, I was born and raised in the church. Like I said, my grandpa is a pastor, but to be honest, I didn't really have a very serious relationship with God even during those times in college.
And around that time, I just felt like God put on my heart the book of Joshua from the Bible, and I don't know if you guys have read the book of Joshua, but it's basically this whole story of people of Israel having to step out by faith and things like that. And it's just like every time I opened the Bible and start reading a passage, I felt like God was just screaming at me and kind of giving me the requisite faith that I needed to actually step out and actually go in with confidence.
So that's what I really felt like was the difference for me, because I'm a very naturally skeptical person, like being a scientist. Scientist-
Willie Thompson:
Part and parcel of the job.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. Being a good scientist, being rigorous, being skeptical, but unfortunately to make those kind of quantum leaps in your career, you almost need to put that aside a bit. And that's where I think my faith really started to step into it. Yeah, that's sort of I think what allowed me to go in there with confidence. And again, to be honest, I don't think I was any better than any of the people that I interviewed with.
I do just feel like God just gave me a favor with it, and now I sort of feel like the onus of, I opened up this door, I got to make sure to step through it, but I also got to make sure to be faithful with the aftermath of that.
Taylor Goss:
And sort of having this context of being a skeptic, being a scientist, but taking a larger view of what your responsibility to your community is, we'll put it like that. You call yourself a humanitarian scientist in every bio that I could find of you that seems connected to what you were just talking about. What does that mean to you?
Vidal Arroyo:
It's an evolving definition for me, but where it started, so it was something I didn't tell. There's a lot of parallel stories happening along this journey. One parallel story I didn't tell you guys about that also relates to this was that when I was a sophomore in college, my research mentor was diagnosed with a stage four cancer, and he passed away nine months later.
Willie Thompson:
Whoa.
Taylor Goss:
Wow.
Vidal Arroyo:
He was really young too. He was like 37, 38, young dad. He looked healthy too. This is a stereotype with teachers that they have apples on their desk, but this guy literally had an apple on his desk every single time I came to his office. And that for me was the catalyst of wanting to become a researcher. But the motivation, it wasn't curiosity. I think for me, that's coming over time. As I've learned more about science, I've realized how beautiful it is. But initially the impetus was like, I want to do this, because I want to save people's lives. I want to alleviate the suffering that I saw this man go through.
And so I think that's where the humanitarian aspect of it comes into it. But again, like I said, I think it's an evolving thing. I think there's different ways it manifests. I would say currently, I think the humanitarian aspect, the way that I'm playing into it more is finding time outside of science to do things that are more directly life-giving. I don't want to say the science is not life-giving, I just think that there are multiple steps in the way from a discovery, making an impact in someone's life where there's other venues in my life where I feel like it's just a closer or smaller gap to jump.
I think for me, that's the way that I try to play into it more is trying to find time to invest in writing poetry or doing music or things like that. A lot of those things I use as venues to talk about my own struggles I've had with mental health. And I feel like in many ways, not only am I helping maybe break the stigma around some of those things, but also I use it as an outlet to talk about the things that have helped me cope with those things and almost use those experiences not as someone that's going to ruin your life, but as an opportunity for deeper growth and depth.
Taylor Goss:
Do you think that's how you've pretty commonly felt about grief or challenge? Or do you think you had to work to get to a place where you figure out how to express and reflect on those things?
Vidal Arroyo:
I'm going to tie this back in actually into some of the Oxford stuff. For me, I've realized it's actually part of my creative process, but I didn't realize this until I went through it the first iteration. Talking about the Rhodes, so I got the Rhodes, I went to Oxford, and my first term at Oxford was, it was like a slow but steady spiral downward.
About a month before I flew out, I was about to work with this researcher there, and he sent me an email just letting me know, "I'm leaving the university to go full-time with a company that I'm going to start." And I was still afraid, but I was like, all right, I'm a research student. So my entire degree is defined by working with a person and I no longer have that person.
I wrote one in my first term. I audited some classes and just chilling out. I'm still meeting a lot of people in the Rhodes community and stuff. And I just took my time with finding a lab. I'll find time by the end of this term, and then I'll have plenty of time, six or five other terms to sort out my research.
I joined a lab and then a month later, this is in the New Year, so this is 2020, a PI tells me, "Yeah, I'm also leaving the university."
Taylor Goss:
Oh my gosh.
Vidal Arroyo:
I kid you not, bro.
Willie Thompson:
What are the odds?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, lightning struck twice. He was actually leaving to University of Manchester. The rationale was that his entire family was in York, which is an hour away or 30 minutes away from Manchester, and it's like four hours away from Oxford. This dude was literally on a weekly basis, Sunday night, driving up to Oxford, living in another apartment, working Monday through Friday in Oxford, and then going back to his family during the weekends, living two lives at once.
And he just was like, "Dude, I'm just done with this." And I'm like, "I also understand, but this also..."
Taylor Goss:
This is not ideal.
Vidal Arroyo:
"This is not ideal." Then I lose another term. And then by the time I joined a lab, about a month after that, COVID hits. COVID was really interesting because my housing fell through in the sense that the college that I was staying at and out of grace for them, I'm not going to name it, but if you dig deep, you could find out what college I was staying at.
Taylor Goss:
Public records request.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, public... I'm sure you can find that information out there. But they wouldn't let me do laundry. And all the laundromats were closed because they didn't want to deal with people with coins or anything like that during the pandemic. And I didn't have some sweet connection in another college where I could do laundry at someone else's college.
I basically realized after two weeks that, yeah, this is not sustainable. I'm not going to go into details, but you can imagine all your clothes being dirty and you're like, "What am I going to wear tomorrow?"
Taylor Goss:
Sure. Yeah.
Vidal Arroyo:
I decided with some housemates of mine to, or not housemates. They're actually other Rhodes classmates, to trying to find another place. And we moved around for the next maybe four months, four or five months trying to find a place to live. The first place we moved into, we subletted. But then we sort of realized maybe a month into it that the people we were subletting, they're not allowed to sublet in their contract.
And we felt super sketched out because these people flood the country during COVID. We have no contingencies. Now we're just subletting from these people that technically, legally that we weren't aware of this, but now we were aware of it.
And so then we had to work for another two months to find a place. Obviously, I'm involved in all this. I'm involved in all of these things. Long story short, it's like my research falls through. At that time, research was what I was using to define myself. I grew up as a kid talking about the whole wrestling thing. To be honest, I did wrestling because to some aspect I didn't like myself. I chose trying to fix myself. And then after wrestling, science became that way that I defined myself.
And so then when you're defined by this one thing in your life and it falls through, you have nothing.
Taylor Goss:
What's left?
Vidal Arroyo:
You have nothing. What's left? And at that time, that's basically, it's interesting with the Rhodes experience because during that brief two, three-month period applying to it, I felt like God very closely speaking to me. But then after that, I kind of went back to just working all the time. It's not like I was reading my Bible regularly or anything like that. It was just whatever. And then during that period, just in Oxford, I was depressed, very skeptical. I was really doubting even if God exists and things like that. And I kind of gave myself, I guess the space to really be like, all right, what do I actually believe and why do I believe it?
And in that period is actually funny enough, when I started writing music again, that's what eventually birthed this album that came out. It basically was my way of coping with the depression. There was a lot of stuff that I was running away from years ago personally that I finally had art as a way to deal with it. And at the end of that process, once I kind of brought all those things to God, it's like I was actually able to step into Him.
I would actually say for me personally, I would consider that's the time of my life that I actually gave my life to Christ particularly. Before that, again, I grew up in the church, but it was sort of more like a cultural thing than someone that was actually personal for me. That was a time where I was like, no, I actually believe this, and I believe it because this is the only person in the entire universe who validates me simply for my existence and nothing else. I felt like even myself, I've doubted myself by the way I looked, how smart I was, things like that. I really felt like God loved me simply because I was here, not because of anything else.
And once I had that, it's almost like it allowed me to just move through all the grief and a sort of security. But it's interesting because then I eventually come out here to Stanford and I also have another, I guess, another bout of depression away. You start grad school, I felt like Oxford all over again by having things ripped onto you. I'm not in a lab, sleeping in later than I probably should, being like, "Man, what's going on again?"
Taylor Goss:
I remember I put on an open mic session the first quarter that you were here, I think. And I remember you came and you read a poem. You read a poem about your transition to Stanford and the difficulties there. I noticed that you were reflecting and expressing in that moment, that kind of difficulty.
Vidal Arroyo:
Well, and again, I think for me, what allowed me to start moving through that process of grief again was actually poetry. And for me, the music is also a formed poetry. I would say largely it's all under the umbrella of poetry, and then music for me is the side.
Not everyone's like that. For some people, they're more into music like the instrumentals. Think of EDM artists. They're not writing poems with bangers in the club. Maybe they are. Maybe there's some out there spitting over their tracks or something, but most people are just, they're trying to make beats or whatever.
But no, for me it was really poetic thing. And then as I did that, and that's a piece that I'm working on now, that poem that I wrote is a larger piece of something I'm working on right now. That allowed me then to also come out of that.
And so the way I've seen it, depression runs in my family I think to some extent. I'll always be kind of going around these cycles in my life of coming out of it and then entering another process of it. But I don't look at it anything. I used to look at it as something that was like, it's really big hindrance in my life or something that really, whatever. When I actually realized, I think for me, when I enter state of depression, it's like my soul recognizes a truth that my mind has not come to terms with yet. That's what happens every time I get depressed.
And so now, I know how to resolve that incongruency. Now I'm just like, okay, there's something that I know deep down that I don't want to admit yet. That's why I'm depressed. Let me dig into that. And as a process of that, that's where these art pieces emerge.
It initially became just a byproduct of me trying to live in the world, but it's sort of become a bit redemptive. And then every single one of the cycles, I feel like I also grow closer to God. I feel like I don't want to say I level up, because not like God is leveling up people or whatever. But I do feel like I mature more. I mature more spiritually to just another level.
And I now look at it as this kind of weird way of thinking about it. But the next time I get depressed, I actually think I'm a little excited about it because I'm like, dude, that means that some other great piece is going to come out of this. That means that I'm going to grow that much deeper into who I am as a person instead of looking at it as some hindrance, looking at it more as just like this is part of who I am.
And sometimes I get depressed just because I'm actually coping with a level of sadness that I think some people just don't want to cope with at that moment. And instead of trying to shove it down, I've learned more how to create space for that and sort of try to see where it leads me.
Willie Thompson:
It's a really moving reflection on a number of fronts, I think. First and foremost, it's because of the imagery of fellowships and programs like Rhodes and Knight-Hennessy and the inherent joy that people just assume being a part of those experiences includes when people don't see just how difficult it can be to be a grad school student, to be a grad school student at a place like Stanford, to have all these opportunities, programs, events thrust their way. And they're trying to swim through all that and figure out what matters most. That's first.
The second is the idea that depression is not something that you remove from your life. It's something you learn to deal with. I think it's a very nuanced take on the reality, what it's like to be human and to have things that affect you in your life. I forget who in the... You mentioned Joshua. I believe I forgot who in the Bible, I think they said was technically clinically depressed. Was it David? It might have been David.
Vidal Arroyo:
If you read some of his Psalms, he definitely has some sad boy vibes in there.
Willie Thompson:
Yeah, for sure.
Vidal Arroyo:
Big time.
Willie Thompson:
And I think there's some aspect of just like what does it mean to just cope with these things that we struggle with? I think that's quite unique. And the third thing I would say is actually related to your Imagine a World statement about, I think sometimes you can interpret your Imagine a World statement about work being art as the work that you do professionally or the work that you do in affiliation with an institution.
But I think a lot of what you've articulated is about the work being about the work we do as an individual and the art that comes out of that, how overarching that is, and understanding so your purpose in life and how you want to navigate it. What I want to thank you for sharing that, I really think that's a very powerful reflection. And I hope that folks who are listening who maybe struggle with depression can find some sense of solace in some of the ideas you're talking about in terms of getting help and making sure you know how to navigate those spaces, even recognizing when that happens.
Vidal Arroyo:
Absolutely.
Willie Thompson:
To that point, I want to get your thoughts more squarely on the Imagine a World statement. How do you think about the connection between work and art and how our world might be improved by the fact that people are viewing their work as art and treating it with the tender and care that it should, if that is the case?
Vidal Arroyo:
For me, I think the statement is partly rooted, I think, again in my worldview as a Christian. And in this case, seeing people as beings made in the image of God. And that means different things to different people. For me, when the Bible starts off, what is God doing? He's creating. God's creative. What does that mean for us as humans? That means that we also are creative. I think in every single one of us, there's an artist to some extent.
And art looks very different for everybody. For instance, I'm not a painter, but I have different canvases in my life that I paint on sort of metaphorically. And I think right now in society, again, I'm not just going to use a sort of a broad statement to say that every single mental health issue is because people don't have opportunities to be creative. But I actually think that some of it could be in part due to that.
I'm thinking of people being on the internet all day or social media or just consuming. We're always consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming. But then we give ourselves little to almost no time to then output. Ultimately, our minds are information processing systems. Just like in computer, you input information and it can output information. But if you don't have any output going on, your mind just gets flooded with just information and thoughts that has nothing to do with it. And then there's incongruencies that arise that aren't reconciled, and that's what starts to create this dissonance that can then lead to some of these things.
Again, I'm not saying this is the case for every single one of those. For me personally, definitely know something that runs in my family. Even if I was living the perfect life, I know I'd probably have seasons where I struggle with things like that. But I did recognize that, man, actually being creative is actually a huge solace.
Creativity is also a way that you can serve others. Imagine a world where work is art. Part of it is hoping to see a world where people are willing to step into the creativity more. But then for me, the way that I think about is, again, going back to the scientist thing, is practically how are we actually going to get to that world? And I think that that ties into what I'm trying to do now as a researcher.
A lot of what I've seen, at least in science is again, I love science in the deepest cell in my body. You know what I mean? It is part of who I am. And yet at the same time, I do recognize that the way that science is currently constructed, scientists don't have a lot of time to do poetry, to make music, to do art, we're sort of constrained by the system to just produce and produce at a very high level consistently. And it doesn't leave much room for else in the day.
And so a lot of what I'm actively thinking about, I work in a machine learning lab. What I've thought about is what are ways that we can automate mundane tasks that scientists do in the lab so they can have that same output that can keep them afloat in the job market, but then also save time in their day so they can have more time to do creative stuff, to sleep? Scientists need to sleep too just like anybody else, and things like that.
That's also the way that I'm thinking about it is also thinking about what are the things that I can do as a machine learning researcher, as an AI researcher to create tools that can make scientists lives easier, so that then they can have opportunities to not only let more of their work during the day, be that creative, artistic, the things that you can't offset to an algorithm, things that they do so their work as a scientist more creative, but then also giving them space in the day where they can do other creative pursuits that are fulfilling to them that is not just the work, if they still choose so.
Some people, they just love doing science related. That's cool. If they're healthy, they're fine. Mental state is cool, I'm cool with it. But I think unfortunately, a lot of people, that's not the case. And so I'm trying to think of actively, how can I serve this community that I love so much in a way of trying to create tools that can automate things and just keep more people in science and people doing more creative work in the long term.
Taylor Goss:
Since you've arrived at Stanford and are sort of pursuing this, striking a balance, even just between these two things, this work and this art, how has that manifested for you in the Knight-Hennessy community?
Vidal Arroyo:
I think a lot of this desire for artistry, I felt like it was a bit revived when I first came out here tonight at Stanford. For some context, I worked in the industry for the year before, and unfortunately my industry job, I had a typical 9:00 to 5:00, 9:00 to 6:00, I had a very fixed schedule, didn't have really much time for anything else besides sleeping, working out and doing my thing.
When I first came here, I was surprised. My first year here, dude, I did two retreats. First, I was like, wait, I'm spending two weekends, two whole weekends. That is time I could be doing P sets, I could be doing coding, whatever. And I'm going out to Santa Cruz, come on, what are we doing here? I first was kind like, "Man, I feel like, no offense, I feel kind of lazy, just kind of going on all these retreats."
Taylor Goss:
That's so interesting because it's so antithetical. That feeling is so antithetical to the balance you were just talking about.
Vidal Arroyo:
No, it is. Well, this is part of my development.
Willie Thompson:
Right. Yeah, of course.
Vidal Arroyo:
But I sort of realized like, wow, Knight-Hennessy, they're literally, in many ways forcefully creating space in our schedules to take us away from our work and help us think bigger picture, things like that. I've realized how much I grow exponentially when I create time outside of just doing research to be creative, to do things, poetry or music, other things.
And I think for me, I've seen that growth in my life as I've been here over the past year and I've been like, dude, if I'm just consistent with this, I think the kind of science I'll be doing 20 years from now will be way better just by the fact that I'm taking a little bit of time away from it. It's so counterintuitive. You're taking time away from the lab to grow, but by the fact that you're growing, you're actually going to be able to stay in the game longer and be much better, skill-wise, intellectual-wise, things like that.
Because all good science starts with good ideas. And I think if you cultivate your mind in such a way and have ways of growing intellectually, you can actually engineer a system in such a way where you can consistently generate ideas and know that you're going to consistently generate better ideas across time. And as long as you have enough space in your schedule to act upon the best of those ideas consistently, that's like an algorithm to just becoming the best scientist you could be for as long as possible.
Yeah, once I realized the value of that and seeing how... And Knight-Hennessy sort of forcing it on me initially, but then after that, me actually intentionally creating space.
Taylor Goss:
You started to welcome it.
Vidal Arroyo:
I started to welcome it, yeah. I started to welcome it, and I started to see, even during these retreats again, I come on a two-day retreat and then I come back on my vision of the world is now shifted completely. Or you put in HD, I don't know what the exact visual metaphor is best for this case, but you see completely differently, see completely differently. And then you can start to recognize problems in it differently, you can start to find new solutions to it that previous angles didn't allow you.
And as I've seen that, I've just recognized the value of it, and I've realized as a leader, sometimes you have to be the first person to do something differently. And I think for me, I feel a bit of the onus like, yeah, it's not normal for you to create time in your schedule to do these creative things that aren't as productive as other things. But again, I think every single one of us have to find a process that we know works for us the best.
And sometimes, you may be the first person doing a process like that. I think for me, seeing Knight-Hennessy seeing the values embody, being, I'm trying to think the exact vernacular they use, being like independence of thought. Is that the way they call it?
Willie Thompson:
The King Leadership Framework, right?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah. What is it? Civic mindset, independence of thought?
Willie Thompson:
Yeah. Hey man, don't put me on the spot.
Vidal Arroyo:
There's a third one. What's the third one?
Willie Thompson:
Independence of thought.
Taylor Goss:
Civic mindset?
Willie Thompson:
Purposeful leadership.
Taylor Goss:
Purposeful leadership.
Vidal Arroyo:
It is purposeful leadership.
Taylor Goss:
Purposeful leadership.
Vidal Arroyo:
Good job.
Taylor Goss:
Yeah, I love them.
Vidal Arroyo:
...points for that.
Taylor Goss:
Now you win the quiz. This would be a hilarious take to do on social media if you just went around asking. So what are...
Vidal Arroyo:
I actually think I got a leg up on that, because I actually interviewed Knight-Hennessy twice. I interviewed with the panelist twice. I had to review this whole thing twice, so I definitely think I'm fortunate to have a leg. Better words, I have a leg up on that.
Taylor Goss:
And actually that makes you pretty well suited to the last couple of rounds of questions we have.
Vidal Arroyo:
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Taylor Goss:
We're sort of gliding into the home stretch of this time with us now, and something we like to ask everybody that comes on the show is to provide some advice to anyone who's thinking of applying to Knight-Hennessy. Like you said, you've done it a couple of times. What would you say to someone who is considering applying to this program?
Vidal Arroyo:
For me, I actually think, and maybe it's just me personally, the area that I needed to grow the most in when I came into Knight-Hennessy. But I feel like when I applied to Knight-Hennessy, I felt like the civic mindset thing was definitely there, tying back to the humanitarian thing we talked about. Purposeful leadership, I don't think I've had too much issues identifying what I want to do and how I want to lead in that way.
But I always felt like the independence of thought thing was real tough for me. And I think it's something that is... I personally don't think it's commonly employed enough when people apply for programs like these. I think they're always looking for what do they want? That's always the question.
Taylor Goss:
Sure, yeah.
Vidal Arroyo:
What did Knight-Hennessy want? What do they want to hear? How do I tickle their ears?
Taylor Goss:
What's the golden ticket?
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, what's the golden ticket? And the reality, it's sort of the thing you don't want to hear. And it's also probably a cliché, but I think it is true the whole like be yourself thing. But I think even to an extent, that's maybe a little... I think the second time I applied, I was myself to an extent that I would consider potentially slightly bombastic.
Willie Thompson:
What do you mean by that?
Vidal Arroyo:
All my improbable facts were puns.
Willie Thompson:
Oh, okay.
Vidal Arroyo:
Every single one of them, I made sure these are all going to be dialed in towards something ridiculous. Actually, it was a mix of dad jokes and just dry humor. Living in England will do that to you. The jokes were very dry there. But yeah, it was almost to the point where I was like, the information here is kind of interesting. I'm just kind of making a joke out of this part of section, but you can't see that part of me in any other part of the application and that is part of my personality. I thought it was important.
But I mean, there are other things too where I just like the way I wrote my personal statement, most applications I have people look at my essays, I decide, "You know what? I like this essay. I don't even want to look at it. I'm just going to send it off. It's the way it is." I want it to be just raw thoughts just from this one noggin.
I think that that actually went a long way because I felt like the first time I applied, I don't know if this factored much into how things worked out that year. But the first time I applied, I felt like I was a bit, I don't want to say people pleasing, but I was kind of looking for like, "What do they want?"
Taylor Goss:
Yeah.
Willie Thompson:
Yeah. It's captivating.
Vidal Arroyo:
It is captivating. It's a very human thing. And then the second time I applied, I was like, dude, I already didn't get this the first year. I'm just applying for it because I am still eligible. And then I got it that year. I remember the call I got from John Hennessy. It was awesome just obviously getting a call with John Hennessy. But after that call, I was like, what the heck? This was the one fellowship that I literally didn't try hard this year.
Taylor Goss:
Man, that resonates with me so much because funnily enough, so I applied to Rhodes in the same year that I applied to Knight-Hennessy. Did not get it. And it resulted in me realizing, oh, these things happen. You applied for these things like this, but didn't life goes on because that didn't work out. And I realized, oh wait, but my life doesn't end. It goes on and what I want to do with my life and the people in my life and the things that are bringing me joy are all still there. Wow.
And then I get this opportunity for Knight-Hennessy, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, what are the stakes here? The stakes are just be yourself. And I think you're hitting on something, everybody that comes on this podcast, I think each person has probably said some variant of be yourself in the application, and it's so true. But another aspect of that is being comfortable with yourself, not just being yourself but being comfortable with yourself.
Vidal Arroyo:
Absolutely.
Taylor Goss:
You're speaking of it as if it is not trying hard, but that's not really what it is. You just were able to exist as you.
Vidal Arroyo:
Yeah, exactly. I think actually, I've actually learned this as I've written poetry. I think my best poetry comes from the unfiltered stream of consciousness thoughts.
Taylor Goss:
Yeah, sure.
Vidal Arroyo:
When I don't put filters on what I say, obviously there are certain things that shouldn't say in a fellowship app. That's pretty common sense. You guys know what those are.
Willie Thompson:
What?
Vidal Arroyo:
They're probably things we probably shouldn't say on this podcast, so I'm not going to go to details.
Willie Thompson:
Probably things you don't want on KHS airwaves.
Vidal Arroyo:
But you already know those things. Beyond those things, and honestly if you really are concerned, just write your essays and then filter for that at the end. Just make sure to be rated at the end, whatever. But at the end of the day, I think the stream of consciousness stuff goes a long way. I think the first essay you write, sometimes even though it may not be the prettiest sounding essay, maybe need to fine tune a little bit, but sometimes what you're saying is actually more true than anything or right after that.
Because after you start filtering what you just wrote and then filtering and filtering that, sometimes you get so far away from what you're trying to say initially or what really I should say is not even what you're trying to say initially, what's really lying under, like down underneath. Because I think that's ultimately what these fellowship applications should be, is trying to almost peel back layers like an onion. You know what I mean? Or an ogre.
Willie Thompson:
Or an ogre. Yes. Okay. That was a good statement.
Vidal Arroyo:
I was going to make a Shrek joke, but you-
Taylor Goss:
I was so eager, I'm so sorry.
Willie Thompson:
Shrek is also one of the only animated movies to have a solid four movie run. But either way...
Taylor Goss:
Cars and Toy Story.
Willie Thompson:
I guess Toy Story is probably four. Wait, what'd you say?
Vidal Arroyo:
I'm a big fan of Shrek 2. I thought Shrek 2 was all right.
Taylor Goss:
Oh no, I'm just saying, so the animated movies is really hard to get four that are like they're serviceable, I think. I think a couple of panels are going to strike out on this fourth one because...
Willie Thompson:
I don't think the Furious Five are-
Vidal Arroyo:
Po looking Jack or something?
Willie Thompson:
No, I don't think the Furious Five are featured. I think that's kind of weird. Anyway, this is totally an aside, but yeah, speaking of the improbable facts discussion, as we close out this episode, we'd love to hear you talk about an improbable fact that you could share. And I would just say before we get into the improbable facts, I appreciate your feedback to people who are applying, Ashwyn also. Basically, and by similar things, when he just applied with two weeks left to the application, it was like I didn't have time to filter. I just submitted it.
And I'm also a Rhodes reject two times over, so it is nice to know that I've company here.
Taylor Goss:
There you go.
Willie Thompson:
But improbable facts, what you got?
Vidal Arroyo:
Well, one improbable fact, I was going to say, and I sort of actually said this, was that all of them were dad jokes or close to it. But I'll give you very specific dad joke. My favorite that I remember is I said, I don't know if we would get to this out laughing. For me, I know a good joke, probably it's the worst with the delivery, but for me, a good joke is one that makes me laugh before I even start saying it. This one is, okay, it says, "I beat box, but I don't box beats nor engage in..."
Willie Thompson:
Sorry, get it together.
Vidal Arroyo:
"And nor do I engage in combat sport with any other root vegetable."
Taylor Goss:
Oh, wow. Let's just take a minute there.
Willie Thompson:
Yeah, I'm trying to adapt those.
Taylor Goss:
I got it.
Vidal Arroyo:
But I don't box beats, nor do I engage in combat sports.
Willie Thompson:
Oh, okay. All right. Got the beats. Got it. Sorry, without the spelling, I was... Yeah, okay. I'm visual.
Taylor Goss:
There's layers to that one.
Vidal Arroyo:
Actually, is onion a root vegetable?
Willie Thompson:
Bro, I don't want...
Vidal Arroyo:
There's another layer in there. Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that when I wrote that. Woo!
Taylor Goss:
Willie and I sitting here in stunned silence.
Vidal Arroyo:
Potatoes, but I guess onions are also vegetables, yeah.
Willie Thompson:
Maybe.
Vidal Arroyo:
There's four layers in there.
Willie Thompson:
We are far beyond my knowledge of horticulture at this point, although we might have fought with Emily Russell to see her micro gardens are going. But anyway, look, Vidal, it's been great. Thank you so much for being on the pod today. It's been such a pleasure to have you.
Vidal Arroyo:
Thanks, man.
Willie Thompson:
Of course. Well, with that, we'll leave it here. But thank you again for sharing your story and for being who you are. You mentioned a lot of the stuff you struggle with, and this is sort of mentioned in Ashwyn's episode in terms of him being someone who lights up a room. But even from first day being in our cohort of it all, even somebody who shines bright in the cohort with the pompadour, that's what it's called.
Taylor Goss:
Pompadour.
Vidal Arroyo:
Pompadour or-
Willie Thompson:
Or the buzz cut, man. You've been a steady fixture of light in the community, so I appreciate that.
Vidal Arroyo:
Appreciate you, G. That means a lot. That means a lot.
Willie Thompson:
Of course.
Vidal Arroyo:
And for the people that are listening, if you're thinking of applying, just do it. You'll thank yourself.
Taylor Goss:
Nike, oh, look at that.
Vidal Arroyo:
Just do it. Don't let your dreams... Yeah. So, Nike, could I get a pair of Nike? Anyways, me in the pod, a little flex. All right, that's it. That's it.
Willie Thompson:
All right, man. Appreciate you coming. Take care.
Taylor Goss:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine a World where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson:
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media at Knight-Hennessy, and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.