Graduation Year: 2008
House: Jordan House
Major: Government with International Relations
Fondest memories of Smith: Smith was transitioning to centralized dining, so my group of friends from Jordan House had access to the Jordan kitchens. We would gather on weekend mornings and spend the whole day cooking for each other. We had this great collection of ethnicities and nationalities amongst us and would put together incredible dinners, and then continue to play card games in the kitchen until the wee hours of the morning.
Studying at Smith: I entered Smith as a Computer Science major. Plus Smith has a great language program. I had studied Spanish throughout high school, and wanted to expand my language skills. My dad was stationed in the Gulf for many years and he taught me a little Arabic and Farsi, and I also wanted to try Mandarin. I took one class in each language and decided to continue with Arabic. You can't study the Arabic language without learning about Islam and the culture. The more I studied, the more I realized that Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations would be a better fit for me. I also continued honing my Spanish language and literature skills and was able to live in Madrid for my Junior year abroad.
Playing at Smith: My friends and I would go down to the Iron Horse in Northampton for Salsa Night. They had live music and I would practice my Spanish. That's where I learned to dance salsa. Out of necessity, I had to learn to both lead and follow, and I got pretty good at it! I still love to go out salsa dancing when I get the chance. Other than that, we didn't go out to crazy parties. We would order pizza or Chinese take-out and sit in my room on the lovesac playing old Xbox or Nintendo.
After Smith: When I graduated in 2008, the job market was in shambles. I moved to Montreal where my aunt, a former prima ballerina, had started a dance company and school. I worked for her doing backstage management for the shows, enrolling students and managing class schedules, and building a computer system to enable registration, billing, and ticket sales. It was great fun, but it wasn't a long term plan.
I went back home to Connecticut only to have my parents tell me that they were moving to Singapore. They handed me the house keys and the cat and went overseas. I took the cat and moved to New York where I got a job as a docketing temp at a law firm, and leveraged that into a full-time position for 3 years before realizing that I really didn't want to be a lawyer. So I took a position as a top floor executive assistant at Louis Vuitton (LVMH) planning non-profit dinners and other events until I could pivot into a position that better suited me. I had taken the GRE and needed apply to grad school before my scores expired and I would have to take the exam again, so I leveraged my network and was able to land a volunteer position at the United Nations in the Office of Protocol and Liaison. In my four months there, I met the First Lady of Peru and Kofi Annan, assisted delegations for many countries, coordinated documentation for international visitors and dignitaries, and more.
While working at the UN, I was accepted into a graduate program at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. I enrolled in a joint program that allowed me to study in Bologna, Italy for the first year, and then in Washington, DC for the second year. With my newly-minted graduate degree, I went to work for a defense and aerospace consulting firm that included opportunities to leverage my international and language skills. I took my skills to a more established firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, to do corporate mergers and acquisitions for a while, but was ready to jump at a new opportunity when one showed up in 2018 in the form of a financial technology company in Menlo Park, California! I packed up my life and my two cats and drove across the country, and I'm so glad I did!
Hobbies and other good stuff: I am an avid baker. I taught myself how to bake in my first apartment in NYC and it's a big part of my life. I make scones on weekends, and the holidays are always busy as I bake for everyone I know. Also, I read a lot. I've read 70+ books in 2020 and I keep a Book of Books (BoB) in which I track of the books I read, who referred them to me, and what was going on in my life or in the world while I read them; sometimes I write a quick review, other times I just jot down a reminder of where I was at the time that I read them.
In addition to my love of salsa dancing mentioned earlier, I am a runner and a rower. I started rowing when I was 11 years old and continued through high school on the Head of the Mississippi in Minnesota. While I didn't row at Smith, I joined a rowing club in Redwood City when I moved to the Peninsula.
I like to pick up odd hobbies. I bought a glass cutter and now I make my own glasses out of wine bottles. I make limoncello from scratch, and I'm getting into making infusions for cocktails. And I love skydiving. I've jumped out of six airplanes so far and I'm working on my solo certification.
