Honors College Level Up Club
President
As a Miami native, I have been interwoven with a diverse community my whole life. Unfortunately, living in one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world comes with hardships for many. Countless individuals living in Miami have experienced what it is like to have their children growing up and going to schools in disadvantaged and underfunded communities.
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Level Up's mission is to provide guidance, expertise, and resources to underserved high schools and middle schools in the Miami-Dade County Public School (MDCPS) System to help take students to their next level. Operating under the FIU Honor's College I was fortunate enough to lead the Level Up team and have the opportunity to speak to over 200 students from different MDCP schools and offer them guidance on how to receive free SAT and ACT resources, and tutoring services with FIU's partner organization, Lil’ Abner Foundation.
Level Up focused most of its attention on helping high school students since they would soon be entering the intricate world of applying to college. Once a month when we would meet with different schools we would give a visual presentation to the students that would engage their interests and in turn, they would ask us questions about financial aid, dual-enrollment, scholarships, and other resources that are important to know during the college application process.
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Click the buttons below and take a look at Level Up's visual presentations for two different Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
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Peer Mentor
Fall 2021
During the Fall 2021 semester, I had the opportunity to be an Honors Peer Mentor for Professor Anthony Rionda's Political Cycle class. As a peer mentor, I assisted students in developing group projects, led class discussions, and answered course-specific questions.
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I enjoyed further developing my skills as a leader and role model. In the classroom, I knew no matter what was going on in my personal life I had to go in with a positive attitude and remember that I was there to make the professor's job easier and make the class a different type of environment than other honors college courses.
Young Voices, Washington D.C.
Public Relations Intern
As a KIP fellow, I was required to have an internship with a Charles Koch Institute partnering organization. Young Voices immediately caught my attention because both of my degrees would be put to use at this nonprofit talent agency and PR firm for independent students and young professionals.
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Our whole dynamic at young voices was based on the fact that we now live in an age of media disruption. In the past, individuals did not know about newsworthy reports until a day or two later (depending on when they received their paper). Now, social change is defined by how many clicks or engagements an organization or an individual receives. It is defined by online influencers who have a voice. The internet is and will continue to be the equalizer in the marketplace of ideas.
At Young Voices, I performed client outreach and networked with individuals from local broadcasting networks to feature several of our public policy authors or political analysts on these broadcast networks. I was also tasked with reaching out to various publishing houses like Hachette, Penguin Random House, MacMillan, Harper Collins, and Simon and Schuster to get some of our authors' books to be read and possibly published by these publishing houses.​
Field Coordinator
Alex Penelas Mayoral Campaign
As one of Mayor Alex Penelas' field coordinators for the Miami-Dade County Mayoral Campaign, I coordinated and assisted in the planning of my district's campaign strategy. I was responsible for running and promoting the local campaign. I initiated phone calls to over 200 prospective voters to persuade and encourage them to vote and marketed the candidate through design ideas that were put into informational flyers for voters.
Tuesday Times Roundtable
Spring 2022
Different Ways of Seeing the World: What It Means to Be Bilingual
February 15, 2022
Being a bilingual spanish and english speaking person has its many upsides, one of them being my cognitive ability to decipher words from languages I do not speak. During this TTR I learned something I was not aware of but truly does make sense and that is that bilingual children may enjoy certain cognitive benefits like improved executive function. This is critical for problem solving and other mentally demanding activities. Being bilingual allows you to engage in dialogue with people from different backgrounds than if you did not speak your second language this might be a missed opportunity.
Culture Through the Lens of Gender and Diversity
March 22, 2022
There are 3,500 years of reported history and women occupy 0.5%, this is equivalent to 17.5 years. There are many things lost when we do not have equality in information. So many experiences and so many truths are forever gone because they were never documented and much less published anywhere, solely because of someone's gender. As a woman in the political science field, it can sometimes be challenging to speak without being interrupted or without being questioned about what I said. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in and all we can do is be a source of information for humans in order to make it a better place for women, women of color, transgender women, and so many others.