Mirnes Husic has played many roles in life: a student, an actor, an infantryman in the National Guard, and a professional working in utilities and property management.
He said his time in the Liberty Partnerships Program helped him prepare for each one.
Mirnes Husic first joined LPP in 2015, as a ninth grader at Binghamton High School. He used Liberty for a mix of everything the program offers, including academic assistance, having fun with other Liberty students, and support from Liberty counselor Autumn Clarke.
“It was great overall, the guidance, the knowledge, and being more comfortable opening myself up to who I really am,” he said.
Getting involved with Liberty ended up being about even more than having a place to decompress, do homework, and have fun with other students. The program helped Mirnes grow as a person, prepare for state tests, sign up for the SATs, gain essential life skills, get job experience, and explore his passions.
Starting in his freshman year, Mirnes got involved in Liberty’s summer CITY program. He worked one summer helping younger children learn through STEM and arts activities. Other summers, Mirnes got hands-on experience with beautification projects throughout the community.
Through this extra involvement in Liberty programs, Mirnes learned job and life skills he’d take with him throughout his time as a student and into his career. He was also able to meet professionals and business leaders, an experience that helped him grow and get more comfortable with networking.
It was a lesson he applied in another area of his life: acting on stage and on television.
Mirnes got involved in a theater program in the ninth grade, and found that he enjoyed the variety of roles and characters acting allowed him to play. “I realized that was something I really wanted to get into,” he said.
When he found out that the Amazon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel would be holding an audition in Binghamton, Mirnes decided to audition – and he ended up landing a role on the show. That acting experience allowed him to meet leading actors like Tony Shalhoub and helped him decide what he wanted to do after high school.
After graduating from Binghamton High School, Mirnes stayed in touch with a casting network and joined the Army National Guard in the infantry so he could pursue his interests and education. He went on in-state active duty for COVID response efforts for a few years, then decided to go overseas on a tour before completing more in-state missions.
Mirnes is now living in Arizona with his wife, working in property management and considering how he wants to continue to use his work experience, acting experience, and education benefits from his service in the military.
He said he still puts lessons he learned from Liberty into use.
“One of the biggest things I’ve learned was building connections and being able to learn how to talk to people,” he said. With the amount of people he met in the military, he said being open to what other people have to teach him was a skill that gave him a great advantage and helped him succeed early.