I became more involved with the department my sophomore year, performing in Teatro VIDA’s production of Cariño Malo in spring 2022 and receiving the 2022 AATSP Indiana Outstanding College Student of Spanish. That summer, I began research for my undergraduate thesis about media’s portrayal of Puerto Rican women in the first birth control clinical trials. I defended my Honors Thesis in December 2022 and was honored to receive the Provost’s Award for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity in the Humanities for this project. I owe the success of my honors thesis to my advisor, Dr. Olimpia Rosenthal, and to the thoughtful mentors and committee members, Dr. Melissa Dinverno and Dr. R. Andrés Guzmán.

In January of 2023, I came to the Universidad Complutense in Madrid through the IU-Madrid program. Between afternoons watching plays in the birthplace of micro-theatre, classroom discussions of Andalusian culture, and a million cafés con leche, it is safe to say that I have fallen in love with the experience. I would recommend it to everyone!

Before returning to Bloomington for the fall semester, this summer will take me to Guaynabo, Puerto Rico as a science writer for El Nuevo Día, one of the island’s primary newspapers. I am so grateful for all the opportunities the Department of Spanish and Portuguese has given me and I can’t wait to make the most of them my senior year.