Montana Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA member Nico Composto reflects on the stages of life that brought him to serve as a VISTA in Montana and his revelations moving forward.
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| A talented runner; a valued service member; and a good friend |
"It is wild to think of the moments that influence our lives.
The small, seemingly insignificant happenings that change everything. For me,
an odd web of unexpected coincidences led me to make several irrational choices
landing me in the middle of Montana, a place I never thought I would be and
certainly didn’t think I would spend the rest of my life. But now I am here and
have never felt so at home.
A year and a half ago I watched the TV show, Twin Peaks, for the first time. It is a
cult classic from the early 90s that most people haven’t heard of, and those
who have often hate its quirky and surreal nature. For me, though, the show
struck a chord. The series took place in a small town in the inland northwest,
modeled after the creator, David Lynch’s home town: Missoula, Montana.
Researching that show was the first time I had ever heard of Missoula, but since
that moment, this town has been all I can think about. Prior to living here, I
had only ever lived in Chicago or New York, yet I craved the mountain
environment that exists throughout Western Montana, so I began looking into
moving here. Since graduating college in the spring of 2014, I had been working
small jobs, just trying to get by and figure things out, but I never quite felt
satisfied. I enjoyed my job in retail sales, but it just didn’t feel like I was
doing anything particularly meaningful. I don’t really value material
possessions, so it was hard for me to sell things to people when I knew that
deep down they didn’t need those items. That was when I looked at the
Americorps website for the first time. I wanted to stop selling shoes and start
working directly with a community, improving the lives of the people around me.
Now here is where things got weird, because I am not
exaggerating when I say I applied for about 200 jobs after graduating college.
At least 15 of those jobs I was impeccably qualified for. 5 of those jobs I had
an in with the corporate office that was doing the hiring and I was offered 0
positions. No matter what I did, no matter who I talked to it didn’t matter, I
could not get a job. What a miracle. If I had gotten one of those positions I would
be living in some mid-sized city in the Midwest, pushing product for some shoe
company. There wouldn’t be a mountain within 1000 miles of where I would have
lived. I wouldn’t be helping anyone except ensuring that the stockholders had
enough money to take 3 vacations that year. But I didn’t get that job. Instead,
I ended up getting a service position with VISTA at the Historical Museum at
Fort Missoula, developing youth education programs and working to increase the
role of our museum in the community. This year has been eye opening. For the
first time in my life I have come to understand the value of community and I
intend to spend the rest of my life working to improve the lives of people
around me (or at the very least make them laugh a little more).
I have done a ton in my year as a VISTA, working in many
different roles to build the capacity at my museum. There is one job, though,
that I have enjoyed more than any other at the museum: I love developing
education programs and teaching. That is just who I am. Perhaps the highlight of my year has been my
task of developing a summer program for Missoula-area middle-schoolers called
the “Jr. Docent Program.” The idea behind the program is to train students to
become tour guides at our museum. It has been an incredibly rewarding
experience seeing these students grow in knowledge and confidence. After just a
few weeks, they have learned a tremendous amount about history as well as
developed necessary interpersonal skills that they can use for the rest of
their lives. I created the curriculum for the program with the goal of making
it possible to run the program on a yearly basis after my service is complete,
thus expanding educational opportunities for young Missoulians for years to
come.
When I was younger I always wanted to become a teacher, but
growing up in Chicago I saw so many teachers upset with the education system. Being
a teacher began to seem like an undesirable position. This year as a VISTA,
though, has reminded me how valuable teaching is and how much I love it. For
the first time in a long time I don’t feel lost. It feels like I have a plan
and direction, like I am moving towards something valuable. All I want is to be
a teacher in Western Montana, it doesn’t even quite matter where, as long as
there are mountains. I am hoping to teach at a high school, because I personally
struggled with self-identity and self-confidence during my own high school
years. For any student that is experiencing similar struggles, I hope to help
them through the four years that I know can be challenging and inspire them to
pursue their passions and do great things for our world.
What an incredibly
unlikely set of events to lead me to this point. I guess that is the way things
happen for everyone. For me, I saw a TV show in the Midwest and now I am going
to be a teacher in Montana… All glued together by the inspirational experiences
I received as a VISTA. I am going to be finishing my year in a few weeks and I
can’t give enough thanks to the people who supported me this year: The staff at
MTCC, my co-workers at the Historical Museum and, of course, my fellow VISTAs
who never stopped and never will stop having deeply meaningful roles in the
communities with which they work. What an awesome group of people to have spent
my year with."
