Marshall Butler

Marshall Butler
Major: Manufacturing Engineering
Graduation: April 2024
Instagram: @marshall_butler-55

I have an unquenchable thirst for learning and constantly seeking creative opportunities to explore new knowledge. This passion has led me to pursue jobs in a wide range of career fields, take classes in very different subjects, travel around the country, and speak many different languages. When I see a challenge, I go directly towards it (rather than away from it) and try to seek creative solutions to succeed at it, no matter how difficult it may seem.

What's one item on your bucket list? 

One item on my bucket list was to become a blacksmith, and I accomplished that this past summer. I flew across the country to a small trade school and trained under a world-renowned blacksmith.

All modesty aside, what are you better at than 90% of people?

Preparing for unforeseen challenges. From intense, in-depth study of history, religion, psychology, physics, culture, linguistics and many other subjects, I have been able to identify patterns of how the world and people work. That knowledge, combined with countless life experiences, helps me subconsciously map out algorithms of what mistakes people are likely to make that could cause systems/events to go wrong. Then I can anticipate those errors to occur, and I plan accordingly. Of course, sometimes I am wrong, but there are many times my predicted patterns of human behavior are accurate, and I can often prevent or knowingly allow problems to occur. It has helped me have success in many occasions and humbly learn from failures in other situations.

Why did you decide to join the Honors Program?

I wanted to join because I felt the Honors Program offered unique learning opportunities that were not available anywhere else on campus or at other universities. I saw the great potential of the Unexpected Connection classes and thesis project as a way to prepare me for my future career and gain a completely new perspective of the world. I also saw that the Honors Program had additional resources not offered to non-program members that could help further the learning experience in creative ways.

What has been your favorite part of your Honors experience?

My favorite part has been the opportunity to be submersed in a sea of master learners & teachers (experts in their respective fields). Just the opportunity to converse and ask questions with humble experts has inspired many new ideas and been a catalyst for knowledge acquisition.

What is your next step in Honors?

I joined a couple of years ago but basically put Honors on hold for a bit while I was sorting out my major, but now I am going to catch up with my Unexpected Connections classes and scout out potential thesis topics. I am very excited to complete Honors 227 this semester, learning about deception. I was in Honors 226 last semester, which covered motivating people through inspirational transformative experiences. I look forward to learning more about motivating people through a different, more deceptive approach. Hopefully just by understanding how the world operates will enable me to become a better participant and citizen in it.