I applied for and was accepted into the lauded Wesleyan University Center for Prison Education (CPE) program. This program gives its incarcerated students the unique opportunity to engage in a premier liberal arts education. Not because we (the incarcerated students) are ungrateful, more so because we can’t be. There is this tenuous, anxiety riven dynamic where the Department of Correction makes it abundantly clear that we (the incarcerated students) are “less.” Through the grace of dedicated professors and even more dedicated program faculty, I have come to appreciate the ability to think for myself and to think with purpose.