TEDxMSU held its 12th annual event on Mar. 22, at Wharton Center’s Pasant Theater, with “sonder” serving as the central theme for this year’s program.

“Sonder is the understanding that every single passerby you have seen in your day, in your week, is living a life as vivid, as complex, as chaotic, as stressful, and as special as yours,” public relations senior and one of the TEDxMSU curators Aahan Gohil said, adding that the selection of this year’s theme was intentional.

Gohil, along with fellow TEDxMSU curator and neuroscience senior Sasha Palmcoeck, tried to create a theme that would prompt people to be curious. 

What Golhil and Palmcoeck wanted to do was cultivate within the Michigan State University community a greater awareness of others, a sense of presence in the moment and an understanding that everyone else has other things going on in their lives. 

“We all have our own stories,” Palmcoeck said. 

This year’s event featured discussions from a myriad of people on different topics, including astronomy, how to break free from dysfunctional relationships, AI and its future, the microbiome in our gut and the preservation of personal stories. 

Among the talks was that of second-year PhD student Kyla Wright, which explored how people often form perceptions of others even before a single word is spoken.

She reflected on her time as Miss North America, using the image of wearing a crown to explain how others place expectations on you – something she believes everyone experiences in their own way. Wright also spoke about living with an autoimmune disease and how it shapes how others perceive her.

“Being able to talk on stage [about her experiences] was scary, but rewarding,” Wright said, adding that she thought her talk went really well even though she was nervous.