Izzy’s Journey

Why Grinnell?

I went to a small private school and wanted to continue being in a small community — I liked the relationships I could build with my teachers. I wanted another small, tight-knit community that was not too far, but also not too close, to home. And the liberal arts stood out to me because I had this plan of studying biology, but I also wanted to be able to take a wide variety of classes. It ended up being beneficial for me when I completely switched up my major and what I wanted to do, and I was able to do that easily.

I attended the admitted students’ weekend in March and had a blast. We had a nice meal in the Harry Potter room (the former Quad Dining Room), and it was so beautiful.

I went to an improv show that was hilarious. I could see that special community at Grinnell where people are having fun together. It felt welcoming.

At Grinnell, people seem to value being with each other and cherishing that time together, I think, in a happy way.

My Virtual First Year

It was a rocky start because of the pandemic. All my classes were virtual, including First-Year Tutorial — a class that all new students take to develop writing, presentation, and discussion skills. It was hard but I think my tutorial professor did a good job of helping us bond with each other. He partnered me with Cicely, who’s now my best friend.

After the pandemic when we were all able to come back to campus full time, I have been able to find that close community and make the connections with my professors that I had been hoping for.

Cross Country

At Grinnell, I’ve been able to run cross country and track and I’m one of the captains of the women’s team this year. That’s been cool just to be able to see how I’ve grown through the years with this team. It’s been a great community to have outside of academia. Running gives me a place where I can go and shut my brain off and be with a lot of my friends.

Choosing My Major

I came in thinking I would major in biology and pre-med. Both my parents are doctors. The plan was to follow in their footsteps.

My first year, I took all the courses that would set me up for pre-med. My second year, I remember distinctly, my friends and I all had some reading to do before the first day of classes. I had my organic chemistry textbook and I got four pages into the introduction, and I just started crying. I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.”

I called my parents and told them, “I just don’t like biology or chemistry.” I immediately met with my adviser, and he was reassuring. He told me, “This is normal. A lot of people go through this.” He helped me talk through all the options and brainstorm what I was interested in. He asked me, “Well, what did you enjoy taking last year?” I told him about my anthropology class, and then I looked into other anthro classes and added two to my schedule. I enjoyed them and just kept taking more until I declared my anthropology and Spanish double major.

Music

I took percussion lessons in my first year and piano lessons last fall. That was fun. I got to play in a recital in the chapel, which is beautiful. 

This semester I’m taking organ lessons. It’s a completely new instrument to me. I just had my first lesson last week, and it was awesome. It’s such a unique instrument.

My Internship

Classes

One of the anthro classes I took was called Illness, Healing, and Culture, which is essentially a medical anthropology class. My final project was about doulas and the role that they can play in reducing obstetric racism and lowering maternal death rates, especially among Black women. I had that idea of pursuing a career working to reduce racism in health care and obstetrics, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with all that. My internship at the Redleaf Clinic showed me one possible path I could follow.

Internship

My summer internship at the Redleaf Center for Family Healing at the Hennepin County Medical Center was meaningful to me and pertinent to what I want to do as a career. The clinic works with pregnant and parenting people suffering with severe mental crises, usually depression or bipolar disorder.

I worked as a research assistant, doing various tasks that the senior researcher needed me to do, such as a literature review. Toward the end of the summer, I also did a lot of grant writing.

Putting It All Together

In the end, my internship at the Redleaf Center showed me that I don’t necessarily want to go into research, but that’s also helpful to know. I’m interested in that field anyway — the health care system and underprivileged people, and mental health and mental illness, with this nuance of pregnant and parenting people.

Study Abroad

I wanted to study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, but I was a bit nervous! I went to Granada in southern Spain, where I lived in a dorm with 10 other students. Once I settled in and met the other students, I was like, “This will be okay.”

I took classes that I wouldn’t normally take, like Cross-Cultural Psychology, Islamic Garden Architecture, and a class about Granada and its urban arts and culture. It was cool to take classes that were completely outside of my major.

We took several trips within Spain but our big trip was to Morocco, which was fascinating. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life — I’d never been in a place that was so culturally different. We were there for four nights total and stayed with a family for two nights. We had host sisters and brothers, and our host mom would make these huge vats of couscous — it was the most delicious food I’d ever had!

We also went to a hammam, which is the baths they have there. We went with our host sister and all bathed together around a bunch of strangers. I just had to keep an open mind going into it and remind myself, “This is different from what I usually do, but I’m going to try it out and enjoy it.”

It ended up being a super cool experience. There were whole families there, moms with their kids, and people just chatting. It was important for me to keep an open mind to these experiences that I knew were going to make me slightly uncomfortable but that would also be so valuable.

Taking Care of Myself

This year, just cherishing the time with my friends is super important. I’ve had a goal of improving my self-care this year, which has been good for me — putting down homework at a certain time and going to bed, which has never been a boundary for me. And just being intentional with everything that I do. I’ve gotten better at focusing on the stuff that matters.

Friends and Fun

For fun, my friends and I like to go to different events on campus that take place every weekend, like Harris parties and Gardner concerts. For a calmer night in, we sometimes do game nights and play different board games or card games — Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is always a favorite. We also like to explore different events in town, like Jingle Bell Holiday, or go to Uncle Bill’s Farm when it’s open. We also sometimes take trips to visit nearby places like Iowa City and Pella to go shopping, go to new restaurants, and relax. Sometimes, we also bake something or cook a meal together. I also like to run on the weekends with my teammates, practice piano and organ, and read.