When at the talk with Julia Felippe, I found a lot of similarities with her life story and that of my own family. Julia Felippe’s story of her immigrant parents and their hardship when first immigrating to Brazil reminded me of my family. My family came over as refugees from eastern Europe during WWII and translated what they knew, or pretended to and later learned, to make a living. Julia herself, however, reminded me even more of what I hope to become later in life. Julia’s ability to translate her passion in equine studies and other veterinary disciplines into a successful career at Cornell is what I hope to accomplish with my passions in life. While I have yet to fully commit nor decide what I want to do out of school, I hope to enjoy my career as much as Julia Felippe does hers. 

One of Julia Felippe’s biggest messages that stuck with me was the idea of continually keeping in contact with many advisers. I have always struggled with keeping in contact with many of my teachers and professors from years past. I now realized from her messages that it’s important to keep in contact with them not just for the letters of recommendation but because they have been in our shoes before and many of them made the best of their situations to get to where they are now and can impart a great deal of wisdom to us to get us to the best place possible in our lives. I definitely can recall many times I could have benefited from that type of advice and the ability to know I am going in the right direction. I know that now I will make sure to get in better contact with my professors and elders in terms of my life decisions and make sure to have that type of support going forward. This was my first Rose Scholars talk and I highly recommend attending to learn about those of other cultural backgrounds.