You don t have to talk to him long to learn that he is an independent thinker with real concerns for those around him and the environment. My favorite people, my favorite teachers and my parents in general have always been kind of devil s advocates, he said, and they ll leave it up to me to make my own opinion. And when I do form my own opinion, they will always offer another point of view. So, I take pride in being very open-minded and seeing things from other people s perspective. So, in that way being open-minded allows me to be an independent thinker.