-: Immediately upon entering UVA I was placed
in a housing situation where I was with folks
from Syria and Singapore and Lebanon
and England and France and all over the place
and that immediately expanded my horizons.
I'm from a pretty small town so it was really cool
to just have the world open up to me
and then I would say study abroad totally changed my track.
I didn't really even like being away from home
before I did study abroad and that was just,
that experience blew my mind
and I haven't stopped just being thirsty
for living in different cultures and learning from people
with different perspectives ever since then.
And just all of the things that UVA has to offer,
access to the mountains, I was part of Mahogany Dance Troupe
which was really cool, university singers,
so just all the ways to express yourself
and to just really let that energy that this place
has flow through you in so many different possible ways.
I just feel like UVA is a central point
for all these points of light that then just go out
into the world and so it's always felt like
a central connection for me here.