Reporter Volume 25, No.24 April 14, 1994

By BETHANY GLADKOWSKI
Reporter Staff
Thomas Sharp is a 22-year-old philosophy major whose interest in
ethical questions in law led him to the nation's capital. Despite the
death of his father during Tom's senior year in high school, and an
admitted lack of motivation to attend college, Tom has carved out an
eventful, at times surprising, undergraduate career.
	The summer after his sophomore year, he completed an
internship as a research assistant for the Washington Bureau of The
Buffalo News, which he says sharpened his focus on the government and
also his own future: he has decided he wants to practice law. The next
summer he clerked in a private law office, and now works part time for
Erie County Pre-Trial Services in downtown Buffalo, with plans to
attend law school.
	Tom was awarded an Empire State Regents Scholarship and the
Elks Scholarship. He also received the Grace M. Capen Award and the
Mary Whitman Scholarship of Excellence from the Philosophy Department.

	He has been accepted into law programs at Georgetown,
Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale; he plans
to attend Yale next semester.

Q. How has your family reacted to your school experiences?
A. They've been generally supportive. I am the youngest of five
siblings, and have two brothers and two sisters, most of them married
and established. 

Q. What attracted you to UB?
A. At first I was not even interested in going to college. The whole
thing scared meQeven though I graduated as valedictorian of my high
school, I just didn't want to go through the whole ordeal again.
Starting from scratch, almost. The size was a consideration.

Q. Now that you've had a firsthand view of the nation's capital, how
would you characterize it?
 A. It's a depressing place. You see everything that goes on, some of
it horrible. Every release came across my desk; we would get thousands
of them from every congressional office. The experience definitely
spurred me on to study law. I do have faith that the system can and
does work; it's the people who make it do good things.

Q. Did you find you needed a "sixth sense" when dealing with people in
politics?
A. It's absolutely crucial. We received hundreds of press releases
from agencies, all selling their own points of view. You had to step
back and try to see the truth in it. In government, the ability to
judge peers is very important. You're dealing with at least 536
people, who all have an agenda or ulterior motive that you must be
aware of.

Q. What most surprised you during your stay in Washington?
A. The incredible access allowed to reporters. Everything was
literally just a phone call away. While it was so easy to just call up
and people would give you the answers you wanted, I got the definite
sense that people were afraid of reporters. People were tense over the
phone, apparently cautious of the power the media wields.

Q. Do you feel the media has too much power in the formation of public
opinion?
A. I'm not saying that media has undue power....The people need the
media. Reporters are trained to look for inconsistencies: it's another
form of the system's checks and balances.
	There is such a staggering amount of information, it's amazing
how little is available to people. When the Tailhook report came out,
it was the size of the Buffalo phone book. When that gets cut to 20
column inches in a newspaper, some distortion is inevitableQthe
reporter must pick out the interesting things.

Q. Having worked in the epicenter of governmental activity, and now in
the Erie County Court system, how would you appraise the idea of "law
vs. justice"?
A. Justice is obviously in the eye of the beholder. We've structured
the system to protect, instead, against larger evils. I think it might
need fine tuning, but a complete overhaul of the system would be
dangerous and unnecessary.

Q. 	You mentioned that you were intimidated by UB your first year
and reluctant to begin an undergrad career. Is your success a result
of the Honors Program?
A. That's something I've wrestled with. I thought about giving campus
tours at one time. But then I thought, who am I to be showing these
people around when there's been so much I haven't been exposed toQlike
drop/add lines.

Q. As a philosophy major, you must have a philosophy of life.
A. Strangely, I don't have a set philosophy. Sometimes I go around
concerned and "heavy," but it makes me thrive. Generally, I love
working, talking, and dealing with people. I see a need for them, and
I enjoy filling that need.

Q. How do you spend your summers?
A. For seven years I've worked at Terry Hills Golf Course. Since my
father died, my boss has really done a lot to fill in the space. He
has given me a lot of responsibility, to the point where I'm able to
run the entire pro shop. Every summer I go back and work full time. 

Q. What do you like to do in your free time?
A. I like to read fictionQironically, courtroom dramas. I also golf
and watch some TV (Star Trek). I am looking for a hobby, but I haven't
found one that appeals to me yet.