Lorena Campes, ’23, studies Studio Art at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and is on track to earn a double minor in Cinema Studies and English. Born in Miami, Florida several years after her parents emigrated from Cuba, she grew up on stories of hardship, resilience, and determination. This fueled her interest in storytelling and documenting lived experiences in every imaginable art form. Her essay, inspired by her interest in visual media, investigates issues of inequality as represented in the film Parasite as well as in the entertainment industry itself.
Madisen Fong, ’22, majors in Communicative Sciences and Disorders at Steinhardt with the goal of treating children and adults with speech and aural disabilities as a Speech Language Pathologist. Born and raised in San Francisco, she attended a bilingual French-American school where she was first introduced to the world of French culture and cinema. As a communications student, film garners her interest as a means of expression that transcends speech and written word. Accordingly, her essay on the French film La Haine investigates the spoken and unspoken tensions within communities plagued by police brutality and how imperialism paved the way for this reality.
Liberty Guillamon, ’23, studies at the College of Arts and Science and is considering an Anthropology major. A small town British upbringing has gifted her with two pillars on which her personality rests: a penchant for clichéd expressions and a visceral desire to flee her hometown—hence NYU. Her essay, about the debate over cancel culture within contemporary feminism, required her to attempt to empathize with beliefs very different from her own. She firmly believes that to combat prejudice, it is necessary to understand the fear from which it stems.
Yifan Gu, ’23, studies Finance and Sustainable Business at the Stern School of Business. She hopes to work at the United Nations one day so she can experience different cultures and use business to make social impacts. Born and raised in Suzhou, China, she began to observe differences between Chinese and English literary traditions when she started preparing for her college education in the US. Her essay explores how Chinese and Western cultures appreciate literary texts in different ways and identifies new modes of interpreting literature in the age of globalization.
Jessica Guo, ’22, studies Mathematics at the College of Arts and Science with minors in Social and Cultural Analysis and Business Studies. A series of moves within China before the age of nine started her initial identity crisis, but also helped her develop her unique view on the world. Once an aspiring journalist, she found her passion for social theories and cultural studies at NYU. Her essay, “To Hear the Deaf,” reflects her early explorations in Disability Studies. As an able-bodied writer, she seeks to learn more and raise awareness about the experiences of people on the spectrum of (dis)ability through reading and writing.
Anavi Jalan, ’21, studies Biology on the pre-dental track at the College of Arts and Science. As a South Asian who spent half of her life in Annandale, Virginia and the other half in India, she understood the complexities surrounding ethnicity, nationality, and identity at an early age. Her essay, “The Novel Strain of Anti-Asian Discrimination,” examines the modern perception of Asian Americans in the United States alongside the social and political tensions arising from the historic coronavirus pandemic. In her free time, Anavi writes poetry, volunteers with middle schoolers, and pretends that she has a funny bone.
Julia Kałużna, ‘23, studies Collaborative Arts at the Tisch School of the Arts, and hopes to one day produce educational shows. Born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, she brought with her to NYU a zeal for using arts as revolutionary means. After noticing the increasing ideological polarization in her country due to the manipulation of public media, she decided to use her studies to pursue independence, critical thinking, and responsible leadership as a means of enacting change in the years to come. Her essay explores the potential for vulnerability, humor, and humbleness to become effective political weapons.
Fatiha Kamal, ’23, grew up in Queens, New York and currently attends the Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn. Pursuing an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Fatiha’s coursework and extracurriculars during her first year were largely technology oriented. While coding and calculus problems are riveting ways to spend one’s day, Fatiha’s hobbies outside of school take on a more artistic and creative bent. Fatiha is an avid reader, writer, doodler, amateur baker, and plant mother. Her essay combines her interests in writing, art history, and technology to understand the social and artistic impact of an innovation distinct to the twenty-first century: the selfie.
Jacqueline LeKachman, ’23, is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and studies English Education at Steinhardt. Ever since her childhood days participating in spelling bees and creating short stories, she has had an affinity for language and a passion for communicating nuanced ideas. As a result, when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US, she noticed the rhetoric of heroism underlying discussions about health workers’ struggles. Identifying parallels between this harmful tendency and the ancient notion dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which asserts that dying for one’s country is patriotic, compelled her to write her essay. Influenced by her experience teaching students through the NYU organization ElevatED, Jacqueline hopes to become a teacher grounded in culturally responsive-sustaining education who inspires students to pursue their ambitions.
Alana Markel, ’23, is a Drama major at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, currently studying at the Atlantic Acting School. Alana discovered and developed her passion for acting in high school, and after graduation spent a year at the Hagen Core Program at HB Studio in New York. As an actress, her job is to tell imagined stories truthfully. Her essay, “Truth in Art(lessness),” was born out of this desire to understand the lines we draw between truth and fiction in art. Stepping away from performance and into visual art, Alana’s essay examines the work of war photographer Don McCullin to consider what it means to tell the truth through an artistic medium, and whether or not that act makes them an artist.
Caitlin Mulvihill, ’23, studies Media, Culture, and Communication at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Caitlin came to NYU prepared to learn not only more about the world, but more about herself as well. As a member of the Undergraduate Student Government, she is particularly interested in systems of power and the impact of an intersectional approach to change. Her essay considers structural inequality within the context gender identity and questions what space we hold in our current systems for people who are not cisgender men.
Fabiola Sanabria, ’23, studies Economics and Politics on the pre-law track at the College of Arts and Science, and hopes to one day represent Costa Rica internationally, advocating for women’s rights in Latin America. An Italian-Costa Rican born in England and raised in Costa Rica, she broke Latino machismo cultural expectations by going abroad for her undergraduate degree. After moving to New York she realized how machismo affects women everywhere. Her essay proposes an approach for Costa Rican institutions to better educate people into a culture of equality where everyone can help decrease femicide cases.
Ginger Semko, ’23, is pursuing a double major in Politics and Media, Culture, and Communication on a pre-law track, and serves as Treasurer of the NYU Mock Trial Team. She hopes to one day work as a civil rights attorney and eventually run for the US House of Representatives. Her experiences as a Chinese adoptee in a transracial family heavily influenced her perspective on identity and culture, and ultimately inspired her to use language and art to better amplify the unique stories of people and communities of color. Her essay, sparked by her own struggle to justify the cost of her education, strives to explore what role college plays in both the lives of students and in America as a whole.
Olympia Spivey, ’21, studies International Relations with minors in Peace and Conflict Studies and French in the College of Arts and Science. Born and raised in Sarasota, Florida, she hopes to build equitable reform solutions that center on marginalized populations both domestically and abroad. Through an NYC non-profit, Olympia worked in classrooms using innovative technology to empower young voices to engage with their communities. Her essay deals with the challenges of speaking out against injustice during the recent pandemic, and how our voices can help realize our dream for a different America.
Lydia Varcoe-Wolfson, ’23, is a Nursing major in the LEAD Honors Program with a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. She plans to become a nurse midwife, providing equitable, compassionate, and educational reproductive healthcare to people of all identities and backgrounds. Lydia grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is thankful that the school and church communities that raised her provided excellent sex education that emphasized the importance of female pleasure. She was shocked to realize that this is far from the norm in the American education system. Lydia’s essay explores the power of language, and how using incorrect terms for female bodies conveys sexist messages about the role and value of women in society.
Mengyang Zeng, ’23, majors in Applied Psychology at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and plans to study Journalism and Creative Writing at the College of Arts and Science. Growing up next to a botanical garden in the densely-populated city of Guangzhou, China, she finds her inspiration for writing in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and is intrigued by the plant-like resilience and potential in human beings. In her essay, she explores these human traits through a careful examination of her not-so-unique encounters with the COVID-19 pandemic in two different countries, and in doing so hopes to rekindle faith in humanity.