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Extracurriculars
Commencement 2022
Graduation day was the culmination of all my hard work and efforts of the last four years. With COVID-19 in the middle of my college experience, I was so grateful to experience graduation in person with all my peers. An additional perk was being granted the honor of addressing my peers as the undergraduate commencement speaker for the 2022 graduating class! This was such a rollercoaster of a journey. I had applied to speak at the beginning of the semester, a process that required drafting and presenting a speech to a panel of judges. I still remember I was in Biochem lab, waiting for my turn to use one of the machines when I checked my email. It stated that they were so sorry but I was not chosen to speak at commencement. I was crushed. Within the next few minutes, I got a second email asking me to disregard the previous email and congratulating me! I was so excited to hear this, especially since I had just mourned the loss of the opportunity. I was later told that while IIT usually only has one student speaker, they liked my speech so much that they decided to add a speaker to the program! I was so happy to be chosen for this.
Top Right: Me speaking to the Illinois Tech graduating class of 2022!
Bottom Right: Me standing along Lake Michigan with my Bachelor's Degrees in Biology and Psychology!
Youtube Link: The 2022 commencement ceremony, with my speech starting at the 1:13 mark
Volunteering
My senior year of college I had the best experience as a volunteer reader for Drake Elementary school. While this opportunity only lasted a few months, I enjoyed my time reading to Ms. Hunter’s preschool class every week. I often paired the books I read with a mini activity that I created on my own to help cultivate adjacent skills while (below) relating them back to the book. I love reading and I really enjoyed being able to share that with kids just starting their educational journey!
Poetry & Prose
As I’ve mentioned, I am a huge reader! Occasionally, I also like to write poetry and stories. My sophomore year, I submitted a poem inspired by a movie I had seen over the weekend to IIT’s annual writing competition. I was very happy to learn that I won 3rd place for the Mollie Cohen Prize for Poetry:2020. I still dabble in prose in my spare time and love it!
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