Technician sat down with Victor Eduardo, a third-year studying philosophy, who was awarded Leader of the Pack during halftime of NC State’s homecoming game against Clemson on Nov. 4. After a lengthy process of essay writing, interviews, and student body votes, Eduardo emotionally accepted an honor given to students who embody NC State’s ideals by thinking and doing.

How does it feel being leader of the pack?

It feels good! It’s very exciting, and I’ve been getting a lot of support since the announcement was made so I feel humbled by everyone who has been so supportive of it. Everyone has been telling me that I have made an impact on them and that they are really proud of me for it so it feels good, like I’ve made a difference. My goal coming into State was making a difference and this has made me feel like I have.

What are your goals as you enter into your role as Leader of the Pack?

I want to keep doing what I’m doing, being on the leadership team for DEPTH [Diversity Education for our Peers to Thrive] right now, I am starting to realize how much potential it has to grow and be an awesome diversity education team on campus. There are a lot of diversity education teams on campus, but DEPTH is intended to be an intersectional approach incorporating all sorts of identities like race, gender and socio-economic status and use it as a baseline to teach other people about diversity and inclusion and to facilitate challenging conversation that people don’t always want to have about those sorts of topics. So with that being said, I see a lot of potential with DEPTH to grow and really impact NC State’s campus and within the next year I want to fine-tune it and add a lot of fire and energy to it so ends up happening.

What are you involved with on campus?

I came out within the first two weeks of high school because I wanted to make the most out of those four years and not be hiding myself, so when I came to State I wanted to do the same thing. I wanted to throw myself into everything and make the most out of my next four years. So I started out in my first semester and joined a dance team, even though I had never danced before, called Just Cuz Crew for two years. I did a lot of volunteer work at the GLBT center where I did the database for high school [Gay-Straight Alliances] in North Carolina, I was reaching out to schools and finding out from principals which schools had this club. I’m also part of the safe-to-pee bathroom mapping project which was started right after House Bill 2 was passed. … I was also a resident mentor as a sophomore for the Exploratory Studies village, I was an orientation leader over the summer and I just became a CHASS ambassador. For the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, I joined an initiative that was started last year that is called DEPTH [Diversity Education for Peers to Thrive] which is a sort of grassroots, peer-to-peer led initiative for diversity education on campus.

What does leadership mean to you?

I think of it as giving, almost like passing the torch. For me, most of my leadership has manifested itself in areas where I am using the privileges I have to help other people. It’s about learning things and then going on to sharing them with other people. Leadership is giving to those who are coming after you. So I tend to be attracted to roles such as orientation leader and resident mentor just because I have been through it and I want to help other people who are going through it as well.

Who is a leader that inspires you?

One is one of my close friends Noah Riley — he was one of the finalists for Leader of the Pack last year too — he has taught me a lot about perseverance and throwing yourself into situations that are drastically different than what you know, like leaning into discomfort. He’s a beast of a human being and he has taught me a lot, he’s the reason I started volunteering at the GLBT Center.

Another is my mom, she was a hotel manager in Brazil. She moved to Brazil when I was 10 and managed hotels there and she ended up managing two hotels at a time and so she juggled being a general manager of two hotels, which was awesome. She taught me everything I know about leadership and being loving and being kind to other people. She passed away in December so she wasn’t able to see me reach this point but it feels like she’s there and I’m a continuation of her and instead of making her proud, it’s more like living in her legacy.

My partner Matthew, who is a graduate student here at NC State, is also an overall beast. He started a non-profit and works in underprivileged schools in Durham as a high school administrator and was a teacher before that. He has taught me a lot about inclusion and valuing people as people and service leadership.

What has your favorite class at NC State been?

Philosophy of Science with David Austin, we sort of debunked astrology, acupuncture, we talked about a lot of things that are interested to be true without people actually asking why they believe that. It has changed a lot of the way I view faith vs. science. There’s this dichotomy that everyone poses between faith and science, like religion and science can’t go hand and hand, and that people who subscribe to religion have a certain stereotype, people that believe in science have a certain stereotype. Philosophy of Science taught me that it’s a lot more fuzzy than you think and that religion and science are not as different as we think they are. That class changed my life. It was amazing.

What are your plans for after you graduate?

I think my ideal goal is to be working at a tech company working in either human resources or marketing because I love tech, computers, and working with data, spreadsheets and numbers but I also love working with people from diverse populations. It’s a way to combine things that I have interests in into something I can make a career out of.