How have you been enjoying your major? Are there any professors whose classes have changed or challenged you?
Although I entered UChicago as a premed student, and subsequently took physical science classes, I realized that my academic interests did not lie in biology and chemistry. I realized that I enjoyed the science behind human emotion and behavior. I took a class called Introduction to Developmental Psychology that focused on children’s development from birth to 5 years old. I really enjoyed learning all about the cognitive and biological mechanisms that go into early human development. I am continuing that path by taking on the psychology major, and I hope to go into psychological research for my career. Outside of my major, I enjoy my Social Science Inquiry class because it focuses on social phenomena and social questions. You get to learn about many of the trends you see in society, which I personally find interesting.
What activities are you involved with outside the classroom? Have you had any leadership roles in your extracurricular activities?
One of the student organizations I am involved with on campus is called MEChA, an activist and cultural group that aims at using education as a means to help the community. For Latino Heritage Week, we invited a band called Las Cafeteras to come perform at UChicago. The band held a workshop before their performance, and it was very memorable for me. I realized a lot of things about how I view my identity. They focused on the Chicano experience and how being a Latina in a higher education setting has its difficulties/benefits. I got to listen to great music but, more importantly, walk away with a new perspective on a part of my identity I had not realized was actually very important to me.
If you could speak directly to the person whose gift supported your scholarship, what would you say?
Without my scholarship, I probably would not have come to UChicago at all. So even daily things like getting coffee at Harper café or a walk in the quad is an experience I would not be able to do without my scholarship. Thank you for providing those resources that make my enrollment here possible. There are not a ton of students with similar backgrounds to mine in higher education settings, so being here means a lot to me.
