1. Global Awareness:
So far since coming to college, I think that the greatest contributor to my global awareness has been my connection to Latin American culture through my family. My mom’s side of the family immigrated to the United States about 23 years ago. I was born in the United States, with English as my first language, but we do speak Spanish around my house, since it is the first language of both my brother and my mom. Over the past year, I’ve made an extra effort to learn more Spanish and stay in touch with my heritage. I’ve also attended a few events with different Latin American student organizations, which has really helped me embrace my culture and get a little taste of life outside the states.
2. Original Inquiry:
In the summer of both 2016 and 2017, I spent 8 weeks working with Dr. Chmutov in the math department researching a subset of algebraic topology called knot theory. I’ve loved math for as long as I can remember, and being given the chance to do original research in mathematics was like a dream come true. I’m now continuing research into the school year and I am very excited to keep pushing my critical thinking skills and ability to explore.
3. Academic Enrichment:
During my second year, I went back and forth a lot as to whether or not I should continue with my double major in math and computer and information sciences. I’ve always enjoyed both very much, but the workload was starting to be a lot for me. I also started losing interest in my computer science classes. They just started to seem really tedious to me. However, when I went into second semester of my second year, I started taking a new computer science class which I really enjoyed. After talking with a few professors and reading some material outside of class, I remembered why I started to love computer science in the first place, and I decided to continue with the double major. I know that it will be a lot of hard work, but it is for something I love, which will make it worth it.
4. Leadership Development:
My freshman year, I took what I thought to be a pretty difficult math class, Math 4181H. At the beginning of my second year, I became one of the “mentors” (basically a TA) for the same class, and it was a lot different than I expected. Being a mentor involved a little bit less math help than I originally anticipated, and a lot more of supporting the students through their time in the class. A lot of students ended up dropping, a lot of other students ended up with much worse grades than they were used to getting in math classes. I did have to learn a lot about communication, helping people through bad times, giving advice, and trying to see situations through others’ eyes. The position didn’t originally occur to me as an opportunity to develop my leadership skills, but looking back, I think that I had to learn to be a leader for my students.
5. Service Engagement:
This year – my third year – I am volunteering as a peer mentor for the incoming freshman arts and sciences survey classes. I’m really enjoying this, as I’ve always enjoyed being able to influence and help people younger than me. I’ve done other service projects in the past with my church, but I think that getting to be a role model for younger students is a different kind of service than serving food with my church. I’m really looking forward to building more personal relationships with students and helping them through their first year.