I’m passionate about traveling and Spanish. That all started with the Middle School trip to Costa Rica. After that I’ve traveled to a Spanish-speaking country every summer, including Peru, Spain, Ecuador, and Guatemala. I’m majoring in Latin American studies next year, so it’s coming full circle.

I’ve always known I wanted to major in Latin American studies and people would always ask, ‘what are you going to do with that?’ but after completing the Global Scholars program I saw all the different opportunities that could be future jobs or future interests such as a career in an NGO, education, international development, research, and journalism. The class just opened my eyes to see that I could do anything with global knowledge and Latin American studies.

Sophomore year, I was in Modern European History Honors. Mr. Levinson has a unique style. He makes you think about history in a different way. He doesn’t write on the board, prompting you to take note after note. It was my first real discussion-based class. We had a current events research paper, and I chose to write about how Chinese students’ test scores were much higher than American students’ scores. I really got into the research and writing the paper, and a week after I turned the paper in, Mr. Levinson told me he wanted to publish my paper in Voice (the student magazine). For him to choose my paper out of everyone else’s in the class gave me a lot of confidence not only in the history class, but also as an overall student. After that I decided to apply to be a BWC (Benelli Writing Center) fellow because I thought, ‘maybe I am a good writer.’ It gave me a lot of confidence inside and outside of the classroom.

I knew I wanted to go to Bates the summer going into junior year. It was the first school I visited, and I had that feeling when you step onto the quad and the sun was shining and that was it. Every other school didn’t measure up. When I met with Mr. Robey, my college counselor, we talked about what schools I was interested in and Bates was always at the top of the list. He really helped me with my college search because Bates was a reach. He helped me find a group of schools that I would be happy going to if I didn’t get in. He was also excited about Bates with me, but kept it realistic without being discouraging. He was always there--I would email him about my college essay and all the supplements. Thankfully it worked out, I got in early decision.

Don’t underestimate yourself. If you’re really open to putting yourself out there, great things can come of it.