I am a recent cum laude graduate of Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, and this summer I will begin studying at Columbia University Teachers College in New York where I am working to earn my master's in Education for 7-12 English. I have worked as Head Consultant at my school's Center for Writing and Public Discourse for the past three years. I was a member of my school's Educational Task Force where I taught weekend seminars for high school students who were brave enough to come in on Saturday mornings. For these students (many of whom were the first in their families to apply to college), I provided college essay help and was the lead teacher for a semester-long photojournalism/spoken-word course. Last summer I worked at an educational nonprofit in New York to support educational workshops and help organize a College App Essay Bootcamp for 150 students. Two summers ago I was the Teaching Artist Cadre Development & High School Readiness Project Intern at an arts and literacy non-profit in Chicago called Changing Worlds. The next summer as Education Intern I taught, organized lesson plans, and created lending library for a preschool for homeless children in Washington D.C. I have studied French for nine years and have studied abroad twice - once in Brest, Bretagne and once at Universit de Vincennes Saint-Denis in Paris. For fun I love to write satire/humor for a website I created, write and perform spoken word poetry, and train for my next big running goal. I love helping students identify their strengths and build on them to become confident, successful, and happy studiers!