2017My friend Lauren, during a Saga lunch, mentioned a trip to Spain she was applying for. Less than year later Lauren and I were the only Sophomores on our bus as it eased to a stop next to la Plaza de España. I met my host-mother, Eugenia. I began in that moment the alienating phase of learning a language, followed by the frustrating, then the embarrassing all leading to an imperfect fluidity que basta. I adopt the "abroad changed me" trope out of necessity. I left Spain able to speak fluidly even before a couple Cruzcampos.
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2018Back in Geneva I became a Teaching Fellow for the Spanish and economics departments. Additionally I became a Writing Colleague, then a Writing Fellow, which led to the research opportunity that turned into my practicum experience. Over the course of my four years I held four different peer-tutoring positions, and was the only student in my time to work as a Writing Fellow and a Teaching fellow simultaneously. I say to people that I've wanted to become a teacher, and yet, throughout college I have pursued teaching positions at every turn.
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2019 I traveled to Austin, Texas to present my summer research with the Writing and Rhetoric Department at HWS at the Association of Rhetoric and Writing Studies Conference (Pictured in matching outfits with Professor Ben Ristow Alex Carioty and Russell Payne). This way my first time presenting at an academic conference in front of faculty from around the country. Our subject was the Writing Colleague Program at the Colleges. Our paper was rife with acronyms, and writng it was a challenging intro to serious academic writing.
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2020I earned my diploma at home in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating with a BA in Economics and in Spanish and Hispanic Studies with a minor in mathematics. I felt a very powerful urge to go somewhere I've never been and do things that I'd never done. The Fulbright Admissions Council rejected me and spared me the pain of watching my award, and slowly drifting away. My mom suggested City Year to me three times before I looked. When I looked I saw a way to move to a new city with guaranteed connections built-in. When I looked closer I saw Miami needed people. I know Craig and Luisa in there, so I figured I'd have a safety net.
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2020I genuinely had no idea what I was getting into with CY or with my move to Miami. That was for the best. Online teaching, as a new teacher with no practical training is futile, and hybrid teaching, which was the style we used most of the year, wasn't much better. I had my good classes, but most of the work I did and felt proud of was for the CY admin crowd. Among other things, I conceived of and produced a short video for the site. It was presented at the CY graduation ceremony, and is now featured on the CY Miami Instagram. I threw myself into the deep end in Miami, and thankfully I didn't drown.
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2021
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