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In honor of Women’s History Month, I’m excited to share how my experience with Curious Cardinals and the amazing female mentors I’ve had along the way have played a pivotal role in shaping who I am today. Startingmy Curious Cardinals journey as a timid eighth grader who lacked confidence, I’m now a senior in high school taking on the most challenging courses. Next fall, I will be attending Cornell where I plan to study Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
My mom was inspired to create a summer that was productive, flexible, self-driven, and inspiring for me; gone were the days of simply sending me to summer camp.
The lull of summer boredom confined me to my room as the nerves of my upcoming sophomore year occupied my thoughts. As the COVID restrictions lessened going into the 2021 school year, I could no longer justify my procrastination and lack of motivation; I would be starting the school year in person without the grace period of trying out new things that freshman year offered. There were so many clubs and extracurriculars that I wanted to explore, but I lacked experience in many, and as a shy student, fear of failure and putting myself out there held me back from even trying. One club that I had always been interested in was MUN; as a student passionate about history, global relations, and research, it felt like the perfect intersection for all of my interests. However, my inadequate knowledge of politics and the rules of debate made me anxious to join a club I knew would be filled with outgoing and confident student members. When I expressed this to my sister, who was a Curious Cardinals mentor herself, she recommended that I find a mentor from Curious Cardinals, a program I had completed an online Cosmetic Chemistry class with that past spring. I was intrigued. But I assumed that this would look like finding a tutor who specializes in MUN and I wasn't sure if that's what I really wanted. However, after reading the profiles of these mentors and going through the detailed matching process, those assumptions were quickly dispelled. When looking at the mentor profiles recommended for me, I was shocked at how perfect they appeared as mentor matches for me. They shared qualities and passions with me. They were impressively well-rounded, accomplished, and not too much older in age than me. One of the women, Lydia, was described as someone who loved ancient history, classics, and languages and was studying at Harvard. Lydia sounded less like a tutor and more like an inspiration for whom I would want to be in 10 years.
Jaidyn Hurst, a rising senior at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, is busy, to say the least. When we interviewed her this summer, she was Zooming in from Barcelona, where she was a student on the Oxbridge program majoring in Spanish, taking lessons every day, doing international relations as a minor, and also soaking up the sites of the city, “walking and roaming around and going to the beach.” Just days after returning from Barcelona, she was set to start working at the Colorado nonprofit Valley Settlement, where she is designing a music program to teach in Spanish to adults and children.
