The Impact of Giving

After graduating from ASP, I attended Duke University where I jointly majored in Psychology and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. After graduating from Duke in 2018, I moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where I started working as a consultant for the US Department of Defense and Department of State with the private contracting company, Booz Allen Hamilton. I currently work in the field of international relations as an analyst for the Asia-Pacific region.

As he was one of my favorite and most influential teachers during my time at ASP, I wanted to reach out to Chris Friendly, who helped ignite my passion for psychology. I loved the subject from the first moment I studied it in his class, and out of all my academic pursuits at ASP, those classes of HL psych are what I remember most distinctly and fondly. His teaching sent me on a career path I never would have expected at the time, and his faith in me to succeed, even in high school, helped me get to where I am today.

Being in the professional field these past few years has taught me some incredible skills, but it also taught me that my true passions still lie in the psychology field. I decided to apply to graduate programs in the fall of 2020, and I just learned I was accepted to a PhD program at the University of Miami to pursue my dream of obtaining a doctorate in Counseling Psychology. I'll be attending the school on a full fellowship, studying for six years, and hopefully ending up not only as a university professor of psychology, but as a professional researcher and clinician. That's my story, from Chris Friendly's ASP classroom in 2013 to a PhD program in 2021.

What better project to take on in quarantined Montréal than a bit of spring cleaning? As I rummaged through boxes of old books and forgotten treasures, I stumbled upon my fifth grade ASP yearbook. Memories came flooding back of the nervousness and excitement of moving to a new country and—worst of all in my 5th grade mind—a new school filled with strangers.

I smiled while flipping through the pages of my dusty yearbook, remembering that I hadn't been nervous for long. From day one, I had felt right at home in my French class, where Nadine brought together old and new classmates with all kinds of fun activities. Her sunny personality and her kindness had immediately put me at ease, and I was always excited to spend time in her class despite the newness of my environment.

Filled with nostalgia, I decided to contact the ASP alumni office to see if they could put me in touch with Nadine so that I could tell her that over 15 years later, I still held such fond memories of her! It meant so much to me let her know that I still smiled thinking of her happy, bubbly personality and that I remembered all the words to the song "Pétrouchka" that we had learned in her class. I was so glad to hear that Nadine was still a part of the ASP community, taking care of several classes and continuing to share her love of music with her students!

This past year, with COVID confining many of us throughout the world to our own homes, I have thought of the importance of the links we form throughout our lives, some of which we move on from when we're too exhausted from our hectic lives to reach out. I think it's important to take a step back and remember these old connection we shared. Teacher Appreciation Day is a great time to reach out to teachers that left an impact on us and that we still remember fondly, even if it's 15 years later!