Why Grinnell?
I went to a small high school in Manhattan. It was a rigorous, well-known high school that prepared me for college-level academics. I got to experience the benefits of a small learning environment in a big city.
For college, I knew that I wanted to be in a smaller learning environment. My mom, who works at New York University, said to me, “You are going to love a small liberal arts school.” So, I went to my college counselor and asked that she recommend a couple of small liberal arts colleges. She knew me very well, and I knew I could trust her recommendations. Grinnell was number one on her list!
So, I got familiar with Grinnell pretty early on in my search, and I ended up loving it. I talked with a Grinnell admission counselor who came to New York City, and I got to know a lot of current students online. The people I talked to were friendly, open, and welcoming, and they clearly had a very supportive community. Grinnell checked off a lot of boxes for me: open curriculum, off-campus study opportunities, creative writing opportunities, and a strong English program. Even though I didn’t visit Grinnell before I committed, I knew that it was the right choice for me.
First Year
My first week on campus was a whirlwind. It was a lot of goodbyes, hellos, and back-to-back events. I was open to anybody and anything, and I got to meet with a lot of people.
Below is one of my first photos from Grinnell with my friend Sasha Laugen ’26, who I met during New Student Orientation (NSO)!
Frisbee
Once I found that Grinnell had an ultimate frisbee team, joining the team became my top priority as a first-year student. Coincidentally, I met someone on my floor who was connected to the frisbee team, and I got to meet so many friendly people.
Our women’s ultimate frisbee team is called the Grinneleanor Roosevelts. The picture above shows all of the first-year teammates in Northfield, Minnesota. Our frisbee team has also gone to many tournaments in Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa.
We introduce people to the sport in the fall and hold a more competitive season in the spring. I love it; it’s super fun.
Synchronized Swimming
In my first year at Grinnell, I also did some synchronized swimming. This is no longer a registered student organization, but I did two semester showcases in the spring and fall when I was a first-year student.
We also dressed up in themes. One was aliens, and we had a lot of music and noodles waving around. The second was Britney Spears-themed, and that was a lot of fun.
Living in Grinnell, Iowa
Living in rural Iowa was the most unexpected positive experience for me. At Grinnell, I love going on walks and volunteering with the community.
I volunteered with LINK Mentoring during my first year at Grinnell. I made a connection with a fourth-grader and got to see what Grinnell’s elementary schools were like. I also went to town events such as Jingle Bell Holiday and the Farmer’s Market, and I was very surprised by how welcoming people here are. I loved being able to have a vibrant, event-packed day in Grinnell, and then a quiet atmosphere when I went to bed at night.
First-semester Classes
I always knew I wanted to be an English major. I’ve always loved reading and writing.
I also wanted to do something else to round it out, and I found anthropology in the second semester of my first year. My anthropology professor was super engaging and convinced me that I wanted to take more anthro classes.
I explored a lot of subjects in my first semester, including biology, English, and Spanish.
My biology class did many in-class plant experiments, and English was my hardest class. My introductory English class taught me how to think through theory and write a paper, and the class definitely helped me later on.
Student Involvement
Creative Writing
A friend and I started a creative writing club my second year. We came up with different writing prompts and games and met a lot of cool people. We spent a lot of time in Bob’s Underground Cafe and got a lot of inspiration from the things that were written on the walls there.
A Voice at the Table
Right now, I’m on the English Student Educational Policy Committee (SEPC). As an SEPC member, I plan events and participate in faculty reviews and hiring. This year, we put on a meet-and-greet for first-year students where we “speed haunted” with the professors, which is basically like speed dating. We also held a "Crafts and Cocoa Night."
The Scarlet & Black
I worked as a staff writer and features editor for the Scarlet & Black (S&B), Grinnell’s independent student newspaper, for two years. I learned about the writing practice and ethics of journalism and the importance of these papers to local communities. I also gained more connections in the Grinnell community. I met a lot of people through that job.
In 2024, the Scarlet & Black was named the News & Multimedia Organization of the Year by the Iowa College Media Association! We went to the awards night to celebrate, and I received first place for Best Print/Online Profile.
Advanced Research
My English professor, Carolyn Jacobson, invited me to be a part of a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) during the summer after my second year. We worked with a nine-volume collection set of a biography of Charles Dickens. This set, located in the Salisbury House in Des Moines, was an "extra illustrated book." In 18th- and 19th- century America and Britain, extra illustrated books were a common practice: people took apart books and remade them with different prints inside.
We each indexed a different volume from the set. It involved a lot of hours in the library. Because the volume had gone through so many hands, we ended up making our own catalog system. Then we came together to collectively brainstorm whether our findings were research-paper-worthy. In this process, we managed to pin the extra illustrator down to an avid follower of Dickens.
Then, we got to write our own research paper about the experience. My paper was on the book collection practices of the 19th century, how they compared their books to something that they loved, and how the works reflected the objectification of the female body and gender and power dynamics at that time.
We also visited Chicago’s Newberry Library as a part of the research project. Ellie Cierpiot ’25, Sophie Kempenaar ’26, Wallis Shepard ’25, and I had a lot of fun.
Career Support
Grinnell's career office offers professional grants and the Career Clothing Closet, which both allowed me to obtain professional clothes for job interviews. For the past few months, I have been brainstorming my post-grad plans with Gracie Brandsgard, the director for the government, law, and policy career community. I have also frequently met with Destini Ross, the director for the arts, media, and communications career community.
Externship
In my second year, I shadowed a Grinnell alumna, Jenny Blanchard ’02, who works at the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in Anchorage, Alaska!
Internship
I’ve always liked working with children, but I never had classroom experience with kids until I did an internship in New York City. I interned with a nonprofit called the GO Project, which provides summer school and after-school programming for students in under-resourced environments. The internship was funded through Grinnell’s career office’s summer internship funding. I worked as a teaching assistant for a third- and fourth-grade classroom. I helped kids with reading, math, and grammar. I also taught and implemented my own dance curriculum, which was a fun challenge for me.
The internship helped me realize the impact a supportive and caring adult can have on a child’s life. Many of the children I worked with had been told by the school system that they weren’t good enough or that they weren’t smart enough, so I tried to reassure them that they were smart and capable, and that they had many people who cared for them. I knew it was really important to help them believe in themselves and set them up for success.
Off-Campus Study
Course-embedded Travel
The semester before I studied abroad, I took a course-embedded travel class. My class was all about Jewish life in central Europe, and we partnered with another class about the Holocaust as we traveled to Vienna, Budapest, and Krakow together.
Traveling with another class really elevated the experience. Everyone in my class was paired with someone from the other class, and every week we walked for an hour. It was unlike any class assignment I had come across before, but being able to synthesize all I had learned in that class in one setting was very impactful.
To Copenhagen, Denmark!
I studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I had the most lovely host family there. I got to experience a lot of Danish culture and foods, and during Christmastime, my host mom made an amazing dish that was like a rice pudding with some butter and sugar on top. My host mom and I also went on a lot of drives together.
I had a roommate from Iceland! We made meals together all the time, I doted lovingly on her dog, and she and I had a lot of late-night chats.
Copenhagen had so many charms. Everything was very clean and efficient, and the people were very friendly and seemed aware of how they wanted to live their lives. I learned a lot about Danish values and what a strong community looks like in Danish culture.
Classes
One of my program’s required courses was called A Sense of Place in European Literature. We got to travel twice for that class: first to Berlin, and then to Denmark's western coast, which was just the most magical trip ever. We got to read a lot of poetry written by artists that we met while we were there.
I also took a class called Anthropology of Food, which ended up counting for my anthropology major. We went to a lot of food markets and tasted cheeses, wine, fish, and rye bread. We learned about the theory behind food and eating together, too.
I also took a class called The Future is Feminine, which was kind of like a yoga meditation class and self-help class rolled into one. We focused on healing our inner self and understanding how to unhook ourselves from bad emotions and thought patterns. It was definitely a useful class while I was living in a new country for several months.
Happy Memories
I love going on walks with my friends. We cook together a lot, and we often go to the all-campus Harris parties and other dances. My friends and I also love when Grinnell’s student-run event committee, [Weekend], puts together something fun, like roller skating.
My friends and I have also hosted Friday and Saturday movie nights in the Humanities and Social Studies Center (HSSC). We voted on which movies to watch, then gathered a lot of snacks. Sometimes, we also did karaoke.
We have also hosted Christmas parties and done Secret Santa and white elephant activities the past few years!
