Age: 21
Hometown: Atibaia, Brazil
Year: First year
Major: Journalism
Dream Job: My dream job is to work for an international agency such as Al Jazeera or BBC where I can work as a journalist on an international level.
Why are you attending UO?
I came to Portland in 2011 to study English under a scholarship offered by the Brazilian government. At that time I couldn’t speak a word of English. Everything was new to me- my first time entering the plain and everything was different. I got to know a lot of people in Oregon and in the network I established I found another University of Oregon student who is also from Brazil and she told me about her scholarship here on campus, which is called the International Cultural Service Program. I got the scholarship two years after I came back to Brazil and now I’m under a full scholarship here.
How/why do you want to change the world?
I want to change the world because I, myself, come from low privileged family so I get to compare the reality I find in the U.S. and the reality I come from in Brazil. I believe everyone can contribute to the world in their own way and we just have to connect them and that’s what I‘d really like to do in life: connecting people and helping them to achieve their dreams and goals because when you connect people to what they want to do in life, everything can be possible. But we have to have these connections with people and as a future journalist, that’s what I really want to do.
What has been the best part of your college experience?
I really love the diversity I find on campus. You’re talking to someone from different states and people from all over the world. It’s a diversity that I wouldn’t find at a Brazilian university. And also the fact that the professors at the honors college where I’m studying really push you forward and challenge you. You can feel that you’re really growing as a student, as a person, and as a professional.
What are you proud to have been involved with at UO?
I’m proud to be involved with the Portuguese program at the Department of Romance Languages. I’ve been working as a student assistant with the Portuguese program since the fall and I’ve been working with professors who teach Portuguese on campus and it’s been a really interesting experience to do with American students- like learning my language and then I can support them somehow and I can help them become more interested about my country and culture. And most importantly I can also learn from their own perspectives about my country as Americans so it’s been a very active experience I’ve been having since last fall.
What are some of your goals after college?
After college I’m not quite sure if I’ll go to graduate school right away or if I’ll take a year off to travel or work and do community service around the world. I’m sure I will come back to my country because I know that my country needs people to trust and support them in different aspects but I also want to have ties with United States because it’s given me a lot of opportunities. Even though I know I’ll have great plans for the future, I think now it’s time to enjoy and take the most out of this experience on campus as an international student in the U.S.
Who’s your biggest role model/influencer?
Definitely my mother. She has played a big important role in my life- always challenging me and always showing that I could achieve anything I wanted as long as I was a hard working person. What we find in a third world country is many people don’t go for their goals because usually they don’t feel encouraged enough to do so. They feel like they don’t have power and since they are powerless they can’t accept their dreams to do something they really want to achieve in life.