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Eden's Story In this story, Eden’s generous neighbor teaches her a valuable life lesson. The irony of this significant story is unique as the neighbor has no idea of the impact and life shaping this had on Eden. Scroll to Listen Eden's Story 00:00 / 03:47 Growing up both my parents worked. My mom would work later and my dad got out of work around 4 o’clock. So there were a couple of hours in the day after school where I needed someone to watch me and my neighbor, Paula, was the most gracious woman. She’s taught me a lot–definitely an influence from my childhood almost like a second grandmother and I looked up to her so much and loved her. There was a brief period where she couldn’t get me off the bus for about a week or so; I was probably 7 or 8 I can’t really remember but I was young. I remember my parents said ‘Oh, Paula’s sick’ but didn’t really get into anything. I don’t even know if they knew but she had been in the hospital. To this day, I still don’t know what illness she had but she got me off the bus when she was feeling better and I hadn’t seen her for about a week or a couple days, which was rare because I had been seeing this woman every day. So it was weird to not see her for a couple of days. She got me off the bus and we were just talking and I said ‘Oh, Paula, where have you been?’. She said she had been in the hospital and I kind of brushed over it and didn’t really know how to react because I was younger and didn’t know the complexity of certain illnesses. I didn’t ask her how she was doing or if she was feeling any better and it was the first time an adult other than my parents had checked me as a person and kind of put me in a place where I needed to reflect on myself. My parents had done it in more disciplinary ways, but this was deeper than that where it was about self-reflection and how I treat other people. I can remember like it was yesterday… the look on her face, she was so disappointed in me and hurt. She just looked at me and she goes ‘Eden! Are you even going to ask me if I’m doing okay or feeling any better? My heart sank because this was the woman I looked up to so much and loved and adored and would never wish ill on her ever, but she was right. I didn’t know what to say so I looked at her and said ‘I’m so sorry, Paula. Are you feeling better?’ She looked and told me ‘No, Eden, that’s not the point now that you asked. It’s that you knew that I was sick and you didn’t ask if I was feeling better or if I was doing okay and that hurt me because I thought that you would care’. She treated me as an adult, which I respected but it sat with me for a very long time and it definitely taught me this life lesson of how to be a compassionate person because I think when you’re a kid, you have this tendency to just naturally think about yourself and you don’t quite know how to express compassion for other people other than just being a nice person and having respect and treating others the way you want to be treated but I think compassion goes deeper than that. There are always going to be situations in life where you don’t really know what the right thing is to say, and I think about this memory when I go into situations like that when I know someone needs that extra support and compassion. You know, it’s better to say something than nothing at all and it's an important lesson that she taught me. She doesn’t even know that she did this and probably didn’t think much of it after the fact, but it’s just always stuck with me!

< Back Caleigh's Story Caleigh reflects on the importance of becoming a role model for her five-year-old niece, Natalie. Being there for her as she grows up is something extremely important to Caleigh. 00:00 / 02:37 Caleigh: I just love stories in general anyways because it makes people who maybe would have never interacted realize their shared humanities. I just want say a story that I heard in class—It was a story in class about a young man who welcomed a little brother into his world, and he realized that this world was no longer about him and he wasn’t just a big brother, he was a role a model. Everything he accomplished and everything he strived for wasn’t only for himself but to set a good example for his brother. When I read that story in class it made me think of my five-year-old niece, Natalie, and we are very close. She’s my whole world, I love her so much. After reading that story, I took a step back and I was like, “who am I as an auntie and how does she see me?” She looks up to me, she mimics me, she wants to be just like me, she always wants to spend time with me, and it made me think about what kind of person do I want her looking up to? I am no longer just an auntie, but I am setting a good example for her. I want to show her that she is capable of anything she sets her mind to. I am the first one in my family to go to college and I would love to be a role model for her to see, you know, auntie goes to college, and I can do it and I want to be just like her. And through just reading that story of the man—the boy—who welcomed his brother in the world, it just connected me and him and we’ve never met. I hope that everything that I’ve learned in my 20 and a half years—today is my half birthday—I want to share those experiences with her so that she doesn’t make some of the mistakes that I’ve made, but also that she can follow in my footsteps because I feel like I am a great role model for her. That’s—you know—I have two older brothers. I never really had a female role model, other than my mom, someone that was closer to my age, so in a way we are so close, and I’ve been with her since she was in the womb. Previous Next

< Back Jesse's Story, 2021 Jesse shares a story with Kelly about his trip to Bhutan and the lessons helearned from his Buddhist practice. 00:00 / 03:09 I've been a Buddhist my whole life. And I had been working with a teacher who had a very big impact on my life. I studied with him for about 13 years and he died in 1987. And I was kind of grieving and wondering, you know, where do I go from here? I felt kind of lost. I just had this idea of going on a retreat, maybe not a retreat, but a pilgrimage, to Bhutan, which is nearIndia. And because that was a place where he had spent some time and it had a very powerful impact on him; it changed his life. So I figured I'd go there and just experience that place as he did. I didn't want to do it alone. It's just that I don't like traveling alone. So I looked for some of these tours, that were going to Bhutan, which there aren’t many of because it is kind of out of the way. And it's kind of expensive to get there. So I was looking for some tours, and I found one in a Buddhist magazine. These people went exactly where I wanted to go. They're going to India and Bhutan and Nepal. And the guide was a Buddhist painter. It sounded interesting to me. And I contacted them and signed up. There were about 10 of us on the trip. And they were all Sufis for some reason. They were American Sufis and their main goal was going to India, where they had a temple that they were going to. My main goal was to visit a particular monastery where he spent time in Bhutan called Taktsang monastery. And it's just on a cliff. It's just like a flat cliff.And it's this, these buildings on the side of it are quite amazing. It's a very disorienting place because you're up on the side of a cliff, you know, and you just like space all around you. So it's quite remarkable. I almost didn't make it. I got sick in India. And I was in bed for a couple of days. And I was really worried that I wasn't going to make it to this monastery because that was the whole goal of this trip. You know, I was really getting kind of bummed out. But the fever broke. And the next day I was able to get up and go and we hiked up, it's about a three hour hike up to the monastery. And I was really hurting. And you know, I've been sick in bed for a couple of days. I was dehydrated. It was a tough climb. But luckily there were some horses that were going up and down to the monastery. And a fellow was with one of the horses and he just took a look at me. He goes, “Want to ride the horse?” And I agreed to do it. It took me up most of the way if not all the way, but most of the way, and I was able to get there in spite of being really sick. I beat most of them up there because of the horse. I don't know exactly how tall it is. But it's pretty steep. The monastery in the distance and it's up on this cliff. The closer you get the more you see these paths right along the edge of the cliff. It's pretty wild. It wasn't that scary. No, it was always a fairly wide path. You have these VISTAs you could see forever but it wasn't actually treacherous. It looked hard to get to but it wasn't that hard to walk there. Previous Next

< Back Stefanie's Story Stefanie discusses how COVID-19 affected her college experience as a student athlete. As well as the impact that quarantine had on her social life as an incoming college student. 00:00 / 03:14 I think like as a person, I’ve grown a lot socially since I’ve been at college. I know COVID, when COVID happened and everybody was in quarantine it was like, I didn’t really see that many people. I only saw my family like my mom, my dad, and my sister and like occasionally my friends but like my parents were really stuck on no seeing anybody like during COVID. So I kind of like lost all my socialness, I guess, like all my abilities to be like social so I kind of had to relearn that when I came back here, or when I came to college. So I mean it was a struggle just getting into like this new world of like everything is so social. Especially, like in college, like everybody goes out and stuff like that, everybody goes to parties, and like everything is just super social with your friends. So, I just kind of had to learn how to change from COVID and not seeing anybody to seeing like hundreds of people a day like in my classes and stuff like that. So like last year, I was a freshman and well I graduated high school early, I came to college early. But it was still COVID and so we had all of our classes online, everybody was on Zoom so you weren’t really able to make friends and really my only friends were on my team. So then last year, it was the like first time that like everybody had been back into full classrooms and stuff like that and everybody is just trying to get into the flow of it again everybody’s like relearning everything that they lost like during COVID. And last year was especially difficult for me because I was trying to like extend and make like friends off the team and stuff like that and create like connections off of like my team or outside of my comfort zone but it was just super hard because it was everybody is so used to who they already talk to. But I think this year especially, I moved in with some people on the soccer team, so I’ve been able to like branch out and make connections with like them obviously. Just my social circle is just way bigger than it was last year and that’s something that I really struggled with last year. But this year it’s definitely a lot better and like I said before, it’s something that I work for, instead of, I was trying to let it come to me but it really wasn’t and it was hard because it was like when everybody gets in classes with like 200, like 400 people especially at UMass like when we have classes that big like nobody's really gonna talk, everybody is going to keep to themself. So like it was kind of like I had to teach myself how to go outside my comfort zone especially like I definitely had to go outside my comfort zone deciding to live with three girls I had never met before. I mean I was friends with one of their teammates and I have never meet the three girls that I live with before. It was definitely outside of my comfort zone. I was definitely scared just like what would happen. But, I’m definitely glad that I took the decision because now I’m just so happy with where I’m at socially so I’m definitely glad that I went outside my comfort zone, and I took that risk. I think like college and like being this age has also taught me how to reach out and make friends it’s not like everything is going to come to you and everything is going to find you, it’s like you need to go find like what you want. Previous Next

< Back Naomi's Story Naomi talks about her experiences growing up and about how these experiences shaped her approach to parenting and helped her understand what she truly values in her relationships. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:16 Previous Next

< Back Sunny's Story Sunny shares a story about how her relationship with the fine arts has developed and strengthened over the course of her life. She has a passion for art that follows her everywhere. 00:00 / 03:31 I would say my passion is art, and specifically fine arts. But I recently have branched out to other forms like dancing, and I do embrace this a lot. I have done fine arts competitively since the second grade. And I’ve actually been an annual gold key recipient of the Scholastic arts and writing award since 2013. And in college, I stopped doing it. Just because it took a lot of time and effort, and a lot of money and space to even continue to do fine arts so it wasn’t very possible to do it in college with a limited amount of space, and a limited amount of money, and just resources in general for myself. But I did end up joining an organization called the Korean Student Association, KSA, on campus. And the first year I joined, I was a photographer so I was still able to get that creative side out that way. And then the second year that I joined, I’m co-publicist right now, which means that I make graphics for this organization and post it on Instagram and any other social media platforms to just get our organization out there. And I continue to do digital art and post on my instagram hobby page. So these are different ways that I decided to continue my fine arts journey. Then, aside from that, I decided to branch out and I joined a dance ward on campus called DBJ. And then I also decided to start a small jewelry business for a little bit during COVID in order to fund different donation sites in order to help find relief for other families. This was my way to really use my creativity and, like, passion in art to give back to the community basically. And I honestly didn’t appreciate fine arts or any type of art until high school. I think even though I did this since second grade, and middle school, and elementary school, it felt more like a chore and like a class because I did go to art classes and academies after school. And in high school I switched to a smaller, studio-based art program that one of my favorite art instructors had founded and was leading and I really liked her teaching style, I think that other art teachers in the past would sometimes take my place as the artist and make changes to my art to fit more their style than my style and respecting my boundaries and my artistic visions. And this art instructor actually helped me find my style and let me be as creative as I wanted while also teaching me valuable art skills and the technical skills that come into art. So since high school, I realized that art was my place of comfort and consistency. And this was very valuable to me because I moved around so frequently throughout my life that my environment was constantly changing and I felt like it was the only thing I could always go back to, and it would be the same. How much I improved would really only depend on me and how much time I put in. so this new peace that I found in art kind of stuck with me and it never went away and I think that's why I really find art as my passion, and I think that’s where I’m at in the journey right now. Previous Next

< Back Eileen's Story Eileen discusses gender roles present in her childhood in the 1950s and how it caused her to choose her career in teaching. She then goes on to talk about how she was able to be successful in her career choice. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:20 “How did you originally decide you want to do teaching as a career?” You know I’m not sure how I decided that I kind of wonder if, well I think I can be fairly relational, I mean I really like kids. But um I’m not sure I saw a lot of choices. I'm not sure I realized that there were all these kinds of things like be an engineer, or be an architect, or a doctor, or a therapist, or be a researcher. I think if I, I have no clue if I saw all of that what I would've chosen. I think I really felt that I had two choices, I could be a nurse or I could be a teacher. So I don't really know what I would choose to do, I mean I could've been a good motorcycle mechanic also I kind of like that stuff. But at the time I think I felt I had two choices, and I wasn’t really into the whole blood thing. “Do you regret that in a sense, do you feel like it was because of the time period you grew up in and how women were viewed? That you only really saw those two careers as an option” Do I Regret it…I don't think I have regrets about my teaching. You know I learned a lot all the time, you know as much about myself as about anything else. And I mean I could keep learning, it's endless. So um I don't really have regrets about that. I do imagine I probably wouldn't have done this, you know if I knew then what I know now. But I don't know what I would've done. You know in my world, I mean, there wasn't a mom of anybody that I knew that did anything. I mean I didn’t even know teachers or social workers. I mean I got put in a school with some really good teachers and I got placed there with two or three of my very close friends. And so It was kind of a hoot. It was hard, we were an inner-city school and the kids were tough. I don't know if they were really tough but they were tough for us, like fifth or sixth graders. But I was not alone, and I had this team of teachers, I worked with three teachers, not one. And they were really helpful. And I had my friends there and you know we would literally go to someone's apartment and figure out our week's lessons and kind of do all this stuff and do it together. You know, have some beers and you know just plan it and go down the tubes in terms of being successful and not being successful. I think I worked with some talented people. I think I was pretty average. Some of my friends were remarkably fantastic. And I learned alot from them. And that's kind of how I taught. I always met with other people and friends. You know that kind of hung out together and figured shit out together. Well, that was nice not to do it alone. I was lucky I had very good people. I just fell on really wonderful friends and support, that's the positive thing about teaching, you know you could get really lucky. I suppose you could get really unlucky too. But I got really lucky, you know I worked with great people. I think that's key in life. Who you work with is really, really important. You gotta have people you admire around you, or at least I did, or else it’s kind of doomed. And on the one hand, I didn’t feel like I had all that much choice. I just kind of went down this path, and with going down that path, I at least had a path. You know and I just took it and I didn’t really at the time, well I flailed here and there but I didn’t really question it and I was okay with it and it worked out. Previous Next

< Back Liya's Story Liya Liang speaks with Nina Kleinberg about her experiences attending a preparatory boarding school and leaving all she knew behind. The two discuss the effects that it had on her life reflecting on the aspects of race, class, and socioeconomic status had on her experience during her four years. 00:00 / 03:29 My high school self-looking back on it, I was just, I think a big fish in a small pond. I like never stepped out of my comfort zone. I never really pushed boundaries. I wasn’t a person to take risks. I think that my college experience is different than my high school experience in the sense that I’m learning to learn and learning for myself and about myself discovery. So, a big part of my identity I’m from Lowell Mass, and that’s the second most populated Cambodian refugee community. Being Cambodian was always an important part of my identity, but since I was immersed in a lot of Cambodian culture, I didn’t see why it was special or why it was different. My parents until I was in middle school never really talked about what they have went through, what they have gone through, same thing with my grandmother until I asked. So, that kickstarted me looking into my identity more, but back then I didn’t really think about my Cambodian identity that much. I knew it was a strong part of me because I was living in it, but I didn’t really get to deconstruct my place in the greater scheme of the world because I was in the middle of the ethnic community of it. I knew it was different, I’ve never really been around that many rich people, and I’ve never experienced that before, it was just a culture shock in the sense that I felt like I didn’t connect with people that much, since we were so different, but I ended up making friends. Initially, I was “oh these people are so different, they dress different, they look different, they talk different” and I was in a different environment, I felt really insecure, and I didn’t have that much confidence in myself, it was really the first time I pushed myself. Within weeks I just got more comfortable talking in how I spoke whether it was different and whether it was ineloquent, and I think that really helped a lot. I just thought that the student body would be more diverse. There were Asian people, but they didn’t really deem me Asian since I am Asian American. That was really hard for me because I am not a white person, I’m not a black person, I’m Asian, but I am Asian American. And I often found myself counting the amount of people of color in the room just to make myself feel a little more comfortable, I was also sometimes really hyperaware that I was the only person of color in the room. That was like the first time that I experienced that. It really made me insecure I think the first couple years. But then I realized that not that it was all in my head, that I needed to grow comfortable in my place, and that my place in the grand scope of things wouldn’t change. If I just couldn’t figure out a way to navigate these spaces, that I would struggle. And if I really really struggled that would be at the expense of why I was here, my academic and just to do well. I just knew that I had to do great, because of my identity and because I was purely there I guess, because of my identity. I was really really stressed, I wanted to be perfect. My junior year and my senior year, I was really focused on I have to do well because I am here because I need to excel, I need to represent my community as home, represent my own Cambodian community. I think my identity of Asian American grew stronger because of it, and I was in a different environment, but I think I was very sheltered being home. Previous Next

< Back Owen's Story, 2022 Owen discusses how he went to college during the Vietnam War and what he learned from not only the education and the professors but also the people he attended the university with. 00:00 / 03:11 When I was 19, approximately, there was something going on called the Vietnam War and you probably studied it in ancient history or something like that, but for those of us who didn't really want to get out there and get shot at we had to find ways to not do that. And we also didn’t believe that war was necessary. So I was a part of a group of people, there were many many of us, who said no this was not a good idea, and the only way I could stay out was to go to college. So I went to college. Another thing that was big in my life is when I went into college was meeting different people from different parts of the world and more so different parts of the country but I did meet a few people from outside the US. And some people have big influences on you, some people have small influences on you and some people you just dont understand. Part of the not understanding is you just have to learn to accept people as they are. I would say the majority of kids that I was in classes with were white from middle class suburban cities around, middle class suburbs from large cities around the country. I went to school in St. Louis and I came from a suburb around Washington DC. There were so many people from so many other places that were similar to me, then I got to meet people who were different to me. I remember, one young woman came from Hawaii and she was native Hawaiian and that was cool. I had never met anyone from Hawaii before. One day it snowed, and she ran outside and she went absolutely berzerc running in between the snowflakes because she had read about it, seen it in movies, but she had never experienced snow before. And I thought, “Okay, this is cool.” You know, just trying to understand someone's frame of mind, especially when you grow up with snow. You know its like what's this snow. And this is like a life changing event for her. And I thought Okay, that’s cool. It is to be able to do that and not to judge someone based on things like that. And I grew up in a society where alot of people were not accepted as they were. Alot of minorities were looked down upon and legally discriminated against. You know that sort of has gone away but not entirely. There was no such thing as people who were openly gay, that just didn’t happen during that period of time. People did not date interracially. You know you never saw a white woman with ablack guy. It just didnt happen. So when you start meeting people that are different and meeting people that are a little outside your realm of experience you learn about them and learn to accept them. That was a huge thing for me. To transition from living with stereotypes which are reinforced by things like TV shows to getting to know people and understanding who the people were. And understanding a person as a person, not just put into a category- a stereotype. Part of going to school was that piece of education. Previous Next

< Back Peter's Story 00:00 / 03:31 My name is Peter Nelson. My next question is, what has been a milestone or achievement in your life that you want to be remembered for? Well, probably the number one thing, and a lot of people will say that would be having a child. I mean, I guess that's your legacy, and you're pretty much guaranteed at least one person will remember you. So, I'd say that was that was one. You know? I published a novel, and I published a lot. I've written and published 30 books. And of those 30, I've, you know, some were collaborations. A lot were nonfiction. I wrote four series of young adult books. And so those were fiction, but they weren't really novels. But I did sell one, novel called I Thought You Were Dead about a man with a talking dog. And I because I had this dog named Stella when I moved to town here. And, and it was really, you know, her the loss of her, that made me kinda wanna write this book. But it's about a dog, you know, that can talk, and the dog helps this guy straighten his life out. And they have they have, my I think one of my favorite scenes in that in that book, they're talking about Darwinian evolution and survival of the fittest. And the guy, he's a he's a writer, and he's talking about how wolves are, you know, are the highest evolution of canine behavior. And she said, excuse me. Can you just stop it with all this wolf stuff? Because frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing it. He said, well, you know, they live in more, you know, l you know, complex societies, and they she's let me just ask you a question. Survival of the fittest means that you adapt, and you have behaviors and traits that allow you to procreate, more than people who other species animals that don't have them. He said, yeah. That's it. Alright. How many wolves are there alive in the world today? How many wolves are there? And he says, I don't know. 300,000. And then she says, how many dogs? And he says, 50,000,000. And she says, so which one of us do you think is more evolved? Well, wolf? Yeah. I could wolves could hunt deer. Why would I wanna hunt deer? You just gave me half your pizza. You know? So, they have the arguments like that. And then and then there's a there's a very sad moment, I I warn people, where the dog he's sitting on his porch, and the dog comes up to him and says, it's time. And he says, time for what? She says, you know what I mean. It's time to go to that and to be put down. Because they don't tell you it's time. You have to make that call. But, you know, I so I wrote that book, and I think when I published that, I kinda had this feeling of, okay. I could die. Not like I wanted to, but I could. Like, I've left something lasting and important. And, you know, we're still trying to get it made into a screen clip so that it may not be just over yet. But if it was over yet, I would feel like that's kind of the crowning achievement of my writing life. You know? And Previous Next

Charlie's Story Charlie reflects on how he values his experiences with people who he met through his jobs throughout the course of his life. Scroll to Listen Charlie's Story 00:00 / 03:34 Charlie: But the thing that life has taught me is that life is about people. So, everything you do is an opportunity to meet someone. And I've never met anyone who didn't have something to offer. Some more than others. I don't know that I met anyone who had a dramatic effect on my life's path. But because of my role as a newspaper publisher, I got to meet lots of folks, people who were extraordinary people and some of them were presidents of colleges in the valley of five college communities. One of my favorites was Mary Maples down at Smith College, who I would work with. But she was just wonderful to get to know and to work with. At one point I was talking with somebody at and I don't know a meeting at the newspaper and we were talking about going fishing and she said, “what about me? Aren't you gonna take me?” And so in those days I flew with a small plane and we flew down the road island, got on a boat and went out and fished and my deal was I had to deliver her, she had to speak at an alumni group in New York city. So I had to drop her off from New York on my way home. So she was very special. But wherever you are people, as I say, I've never met somebody who didn't have something to offer and whether it's somebody driving a cab or doesn't make any difference. You know, you meet important people and not so important people. And one of my favorite important people stories has to do with Silvio Conte, who was a representative in Washington from this area. I got to know him through the newspaper and I would go to him for things that needed to be done in Washington. I would lobby him, for instance, when I was at the local hospital board, I would ask him to try and be helpful to the hospital. And he called me one day. He says “I helped you. I want you to help me.” And I said, “what?” He said, “my daughter lives here in Washington who works here, and it breaks my heart because she has this wonderful dog. But the dog sits in an apartment all day long and I'm trying to get her to get rid of the dog.” So my wife Kelly and I flew down to Washington, picked up the Brittany spaniel and his daughter would come and visit from time to time. So we had the best of both worlds. The key for me has always been you get far more out of helping people than the time and energy that it takes. So it's a win-win situation.

Rebecca's Story Rebecca discusses the lasting influence of joining Science Olympiad in middle school on her relationships, as well as the way that it has shaped her goals and life to this day. Scroll to Listen Rebecca's Story 00:00 / 03:44 I just joined it initially because I wanted something to do, an extracurricular, and when I was in middle school we only had flag football or Science Olympiad. So, for me it was a pretty obvious choice, and I got put just at random in an event called “Disease Detectives” which is just very, very basic epidemiology. So the first time I did a practice exam it was on asthma prevalence in a school where the school was right next to a factory and you had to figure out what was causing high asthma prevalence. It sort of felt like it was solving puzzle, even though we were literally taking an exam. At the end, I just felt so cool—I just thought it was so cool that I could assemble all this evidence and present at the end: this is what happened, this is how it happened. I think it's something that has carried me even now to studying public health because that’s the reason that I chose to study public health is that I wanted to learn more about epidemiology, and I wanted to become a disease detective—as dorky as that may sound. One of my coaches, Senila, who just every single day would just push me, and at first I think she was someone who really scared me because she was so dedicated to her own academics. But, you know, I think her strictness had a love behind it too and so she really just—she inspired me to see what was possible in my future, and she showed me how to do it so I really have eternal gratitude for her for being such a positive influence in my life. A real beauty of Olympiad is that it really does inspire kids to go out into the world and do science. When it became my turn to coach later, I think my excitement and passion for it helped inspire kids to also feel passionate for it. I remember the first year I got, the coaches, got bowling shirts instead of normal t-shirts, and I remember the first time I had my name embroidered on the sleeve it just felt so, so cool. One of the, I think proudest moments of my life was, I worked with this one girl in the club almost every and we became really good friends honestly, and on the day of our actual competition her parents came up to me—and I had never met them before—and they asked me if I was Rebecca. And I said, yes, and they said, our daughter always talks about you. You’ve made her care so much about science and she really, really likes you. It's so important I think to teach people how to learn outside of the context of school. I think Science Olympiad was really, for me, it was that and for many of peers it was too. Really, it taught me to, you know, even if you’re not one hundred percent enthusiastic about something to try it because you honestly never know where it's going to take you. Because I didn’t really want to do Science Olympiad at the start and now it has truly shaped my whole young adult life.