I applied for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships and thought I had a real shot at them. So that was disappointing. As far as medical school, I'm going to be hearing from Northwestern and the University of Illinois by the end of the month. I got rejected at Mayo. I'm tied for first in my class for GPA. I got a 36 on the Medical College Admissions Test and was in the top 4 percent nationally of students who took the MCAT. Maybe they didn't like my personal statement.

I talked about my interest in mental health, from a public-health global perspective. During the summer of 2005 I served in Tanzania as a hospital volunteer and research intern in the Urban Malaria Control Project in Dar es Salaam. The doctors I worked with had no concept of mental illness. When they saw something that might have been schizophrenia or even dementia from poor nutrition, they would diagnose it as cerebral malaria. Malaria is very common there.

My personal statement talked about the potential to inject awareness of mental health into more liberal, progressive Third World nations — or I guess the correct word nowadays is developing nations. These are issues that can be treated. Poor countries need to focus on primary health, but in the urban areas of more progressive nations where most people's physical needs are starting to be met, it wouldn't hurt to get people thinking about mental illnesses.

I came here with chemistry and psychology in mind. I had heard very good things about the chemistry department. Our sciences are probably our best academic subjects. The professors are excellent. Students get very good access to research. The classes are well taught and the curriculum is well developed.

I started in The Great Conversation program with professors Charlie Wilson, Rebecca Judge, Norm Watt and Colin Wells. That has been by far the greatest experience I've had here. I could rave about that program all day. It truly gets you a well-rounded education. It gives you the context of where we've come from as a people. Great Con gets you thinking about your ethics, especially around Christianity, and the effect of your religion in an historical context. It makes you think about who you are.

St. Olaf allows you to come into your own as a person, but it challenges you academically. The friendly environment of the school allows you to be yourself. You don't have to fit any mold. I think that students here are very friendly and accepting of just about anybody.

No. We are a liberal campus that oscillates between apathy and bitterness around political issues. Given that I am something of the spokesman for the conservative movement on campus, I get a lot of the flak. It's frustrating. We try to be respectful at The Counterweight, but sometimes just articulating the conservative opinion is controversial. People will construe it as: "You're being bigoted. You're being uncaring." When, in fact, we're articulating an opinion that 50 percent of the country has.

I believe that we are here not to offend but to inform. My general guideline for writers is not to be too inflammatory. I do not like the word "liberal" thrown around too much, and I generally do not like unwarranted asides that basically are jabs at others unless they are in the context of the article.

That being said, different writers for the paper have different tones, and I think it is important to allow the writers to be themselves. Personally, I try to be rather academic and formal. Some criticized an article I wrote last year on homosexuality for being too impersonal. Some of my writers are more poetic and lofty in their writing. Others have a little more bite to their articles.

However, sometimes people just take offense at opinions that run contrary to their beliefs. So when I hear critiques, I try to look at them objectively. For example, in the quotes section of the paper, which is meant to be fun, I once quoted some radical feminists — the point being that many mainstream feminists are really out there. They believe that men are evil, and many hate the institution of marriage. An issue that complex should not have been in the quotes section, and one reader called me on it. I am now much more careful in what I choose to address in the quotes section.

The blue hub is because of the professors. But the Carleton and St. Olaf campuses are microenvironments that operate on their own.

Ask an average person on the street what they know about St. Olaf, and they'll talk about music. Our music's great. It's very strong, but I think that we have a lot more to offer. Sometimes I'm disappointed that music is all we're known for.

I was raised technically as a Lutheran. Now I consider myself non-denominational. Religion is important whether you're a religious or secular person, whether you like it or not. Having a chapel on campus and a church affiliation allows you to discuss issues of religion, which are important in today's society. I am a Christian. I enjoy having the religious affiliation and having a student body that is accepting of Christianity in an American academic environment that is often hostile to it.

However, our church here is trying to be so inclusive that we're almost losing a Christian identity. Sometimes I think we take religious pluralism a little too far. It's a noble goal to make everybody feel welcome. But a character of the school is the church, the Christian church, and we shouldn't let a desire to be inclusive compromise the integrity of the school.

The student congregation is ideologically homogeneous. They focus more on social justice than they do on personal faith. They're taking the church too far into the secular realm. One of the most delicate times in people's lives is college, when they're trying to form their identity. The individual faith, the habits they get here, will form the rest of their lives.

I've given the conservative view a forum that hasn't been there in years past. Whether I've changed any hearts or minds, I'm pessimistic about that now. I think most students, or most people in general, are very close-minded. They don't respond to logical argument in any kind of intellectual way. Last year they focused more on the occasional grammar mistake in The Counterweight than on the actual content. It's absurd. They don't want to engage us intellectually, and that's where some understanding or consensus comes.

Financially, the Student Organizations Committee, an arm of the Student Government Association, supports us. The College Republicans don't have any money, and as conservatives we try to stay away from a partisan label. One is an identity; the other's an ideology, a way of life.

We want to find some alumni who are interested in what we're doing. I think I've found a student who's going to take the reins next year. I was concerned about that, the handover process. It takes a certain kind of person to do this. You can't just be a hard worker. You also have to be smart and know what you're doing.

I was once invited to participate in a panel on the war in Vietnam for a class. I was the token voice to sum up my view — that people talk about how we lost in Vietnam, but what would have happened if America had not gotten involved in the war? That doesn't happen enough, being asked to present the conservative point of view.

Recently a lot of the diversity groups have been having panels. It would be nice if they'd invite a person or two who would disagree or have a perspective different from the majority of people there, and advertise it as such.

I started more as a neo-conservative in terms of my ideology. Now I'm gravitating more toward a paleoconservative view, similar to that of Pat Buchanan. His stance is, let's focus on America. He's against international governmental bodies such as the United Nations. Let's take care of ourselves.

We're the No. 1 funder of the United Nations. We do all this humanitarian work around the world, and yet people, especially the Europeans, still blame us for everything. I almost want to say: If you don't like us, then we'll do our own thing. And we'll see how the world turns out. Let's give some tough love to the world.

I like George Will. I read a lot of blogs. I enjoy the Powerline blog, and Littlegreenfootballs.com is wonderful. The beauty of the blogs is that they can dissect a lot of stories.

I'm going to retire from the realm of politics. My fiancée doesn't like my involvement. It gets dirty and messy. It's definitely a major stressor in my life. She's a consensus-building person, very caring. She has a lot of friends. When people hear she's dating me, it may put a strain on the friendship, and that's hard for her to take.

Medicine right now is the place where I hope to make a difference, though I still haven't defined what I want to do. I keep reflecting back on my experiences in Africa. I would like to go back there. There are a lot of medical organizations that do international work. I could go to a hospital in Tanzania and give them a Western perspective on diagnosis and techniques. I'm thinking of earning a Master's in Public Health as well. That's where medicine is heading, in a more macroscopic view.