Senior Spotlight: Mya White ‘25 Discusses Campus Involvements and Love of Philosophy

Nick Cimillo ’26

Executive Features Editor

Even before her Trinity career started, Mya White ‘25 knew a thing or two about getting involved at school. Spending much of her childhood in Houston, Texas, White started cheerleading at a young age, an activity she recalled is “a big part of the culture in Texas.” Along with a host of other extracurriculars she participated in during high school, White carried these experiences with her into Trinity, where she has continued to partake in many different activities—co-captaining the cheer team being one of many. The Tripod met with White to discuss her background, her numerous involvements at Trinity and her plans and aspirations following graduation. 

“I have been a cheerleader for 15 years,” White began. “I started off with competitive All-Star cheerleading, and then transitioned more to school cheerleading after I decided competitive was too much for high school.” Indeed, White had a lot going on during her high school days.“I did a lot of different things,” White continued. “I was in National Honors Society, I was on the e-board for student council [and] I was on the dance team.” On top of all of this was a move to another part of the country part way through high school: “I moved to Philadelphia because my entire family is from [there]. My parents grew up there [and] I was born there; it was a real culture shock I had going from a public school of 697 people just in my class … to a very small, college-preparatory boarding school [for] grades 1-12 [with] 300 students in total. My graduating class was 26 people.”

Nevertheless, White believes that the move benefitted her and prepared her well for her college life. “It was my first time being away from home,” she said. “I was really able to acclimate to not being around my parents … I had to figure stuff out on my own a lot in the boarding school, which was definitely a new experience for me.” 

Now in her final semester at Trinity, White—a philosophy major and double minor in hispanic studies and music—had accrued a fair bit of extracurriculars. In addition to having served as co-captain of the cheer team for two years, she works as a senior admissions associate, the coordinator of the Big Sister/Little Sister program for the Women & Gender Resource Action Center (WGRAC), an assistant for the Flag Project and has performed in three theater productions—two senior thesis performances and last semester’s production of “Baltimore.” “I really have appreciated the opportunity to do so many different things that I’m interested in here at Trinity,” she said.

When asked about personal highlights from throughout her time at Trinity, White had many to pick from. “I went to Vienna last spring semester,” she noted. “It was a lot of fun; it was really interesting to be in the place where philosophy had a lot of its most memorable [works] published. And a lot of philosophical thinkers come from Vienna—or Germany and then came to Vienna. So it was cool to see their statues around and [think], ‘I’ve read your stuff.’” She also recounted events related to her extracurriculars: “I think being able to cheer at NCAA [basketball] tournaments was really fun, [just] being on the sidelines when basically all of our student body is in that gym and cheering on our basketball team. Being a part of Samba Fest has always been super meaningful to me; I get to work with not only student organizations, but also community organizations to try to make the entire day happen and bring as many community members onto our campus as possible.”

There’s still a lot ahead of White in her last semester at Trinity that she is excited to see through to the end, including a senior thesis. For her philosophy major, White is writing about “a philosophical approach to love that we see in texts such as Plato’s ‘Symposium’ … And the last part is going to talk about non-western examples of love that could and should be [encountered] from a philosophical standpoint.” The texts of particular interest to White include the “Kama Sutra” and “One Thousand and One Nights”; she believes that “a lot of the time, those texts are just seen as [being about] sex. But for the most part, those texts in their native language[s] were seen as manuals for life.”

White is also looking forward to performing in two theater performances this semester: another senior performance as well as the College’s production of “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.” Of the latter, she says “It’s going to be strange and weird and wonderful, so [I] definitely recommend everybody come out and see it. You have some amazing people in the cast who are so talented, so I’m really grateful to be able to work with them before I leave.”

White concluded with a glimpse at her post-graduation plans. “I’m going to take a bit of a gap year after graduating,” she said. “I’m trying to use this gap year to get more experience in the legal industry, hopefully doing something like paralegal or legal assistant jobs.” She expressed interest “in pursuing a joint PhD in philosophy and JD, which a lot of schools offer … I’m hoping to become an attorney, and then once I’m [done] practicing law, I’ll go into teaching … I feel like every single time that I encounter somebody who knows nothing about philosophy, it’s really fun to give them a little breakdown [of] some of my favorite philosophers.”