Minorities in Public Health
In the fall of 2023, I met the three people in the picture above in my Introduction to Public Health class. Over that semester we became a close group and worked together in class on assignments and supported each other. What came of this group was the creation and founding of Minorities in Public Health, a service based health promotion club who’s primary goal is to promote health equity within the Athens-Clarke County community through community service, advocacy, education, and collaboration.
During the semesters following we volunteered with Brooklyn Cemetery through UGA Dawg Day of Service, where we did gravesite clean up and leaf and limb pick up. Another volunteer experience we did was with Athens Area Diaper Bank. With the diaper bank we packed diaper bundles for distribution to families across the Athens area.
UGA Club Gymnastics
Since my first semester at UGA, I’ve participated in club gymnastics. I knew that coming into college that I wanted to do an extracurricular that involved exercise and luckily this club was open to those with little to no experience with gymnastics. I learned how to do many floor skills during my time in gymnastics like roundoffs, front handsprings, front tuck, and refined cartwheels. I also gained many lifelong friends of various backgrounds connected by a shared activity, which I am so grateful for.
Some of our club activities include weekly practices on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. We also do have fundraising opportunities that involve our gymnastics skills like a once-a-semester “Flips for Tips” event, where we go to downtown Athens after a football game and for a tip to the club, someone will flip, either back or front. Our club does also participate in club gymnastics meets, where we compete with other collegiate gymnastics clubs in the southeast. This also includes going to the national meet, which I participated in this year in Pittsburgh, with my team members in the picture above.
UGA en España – Sevilla
During May – June 2024, I studied abroad with UGA en España for my Spanish minor in Sevilla, a major city in southern Spain. Since sophomore year of high school, I knew that I wanted to study abroad at least one time during college, and it made sense because I was able to finish my last two credits necessary for the minor with this study abroad.
With this program, we lived with host families and a roommate in our program, had classes everyday during the week, and typically a group activity that developed our cultural immersion skills. This experience is one of the most formative experience of not only my college life but my personal. I learned how to navigate and live in another country outside of my home, practice speaking another language, traveling and learning about historic sites that I’ve learned about in class, and growing as a person.
