When I think back on my time at Peabody, it really was so special; it was such a safe environment, and I was surrounded by people who cared about me. After graduating from Peabody, I went to CHS, which was kind of overwhelming at first! It definitely felt like a labyrinth, but I had my Peabody friends, and adjusted pretty quickly. CHS was so fun: so many different options for classes and extracurriculars. I played volleyball and dabbled in lacrosse. I wrote for the school newspaper and found other kids who were like-minded and driven.
Currently, I’m a senior at the University of Missouri, which I chose for their journalism school. I had enjoyed writing for the newspaper at CHS, and at Mizzou I’m focusing on strategic communications and public relations. At Mizzou, they are big on “The Missouri Method” which is about hands-on learning experiences, including having internships in your area of study before you graduate. So as part of my program, I participated in an internship study abroad program in Italy last year. I had two part-time internships, one with a startup company and the other doing public relations for Florence University of the Arts.
There was no language pre-requisite for the program, so I also needed to learn Italian! I really enjoyed learning Spanish at Peabody, and actually used a lot of the same techniques that I used in middle school Spanish to help me learn Italian. Only recently have I realized how well curated our language classes were at Peabody. It was so fun and relevant! Our teachers spoke to us in Spanish at such a young age and so we got the sound of the language in our heads early.
As my study abroad was ending, I knew I wasn’t ready to leave Europe. I was at a dinner with the dean of the study abroad program, and someone heard me mention that I would love to find an internship to continue my stay. They put me in touch with an NGO marketing agency in Brussels that does contract work with the European Union. It was all about saying the right thing to the right person at the right time!
I spent this past summer in Brussels completing my internship and working with clients, projects, and initiatives from the European Commission. I met so many different kinds of people, and loved living in Brussels — it is so cosmopolitan and internationally diverse and political.
The experience of interning abroad pushed me hard! I’d never had an office job before, and was also taking classes, so I was having to study on my lunch break and at night, or take calls for a journalism story while at work. It was hard work, but I learned a lot about marketing, publications, communications and also about work-life balance. I noticed that Europeans tend to prioritize well-being over productivity, and watched my managers and co-workers demonstrate how you can take care of yourself while also being productive.
That’s also my biggest advice to Peabody students and younger alums: relax! I remember being younger and being so stressed about the future, or just wanting the next thing to happen. But there’s so much you don’t know yet, or haven’t experienced, so don’t forget to just savor life as you’re living it. You’ll encounter the things that lead you to the next thing!
Now that I’m in my last year of college, I’m drawn to living in Europe again, and eventually would like to use my skills in strategic communications to influence social or environmental policy, whether it be through lobbying or working on campaigns. Communication can be so powerful, and the way you present information can really change the way people behave, or help people see an issue in a new way that can make society better. That’s really appealing to me.