Hi, I’m Sara Louie.  I’m a New York City native and have lived in both the Upper West Side and Spanish Harlem for all of my life.  Though centralized in upper Manhattan, I love hanging out in different neighborhoods and boroughs tasting the food and attending the awesome events and concerts (often free) that only are available in NYC.  No matter what you like there will be something for you (including Science! I went to a stargazing event for my last birthday hosted by World Science Fair.)– and since I like a lot of things, I’m never bored.  I am passionate about photography and service.  I’m not too picky about where I will one day work, but I hope it’s at a magazine or non-profit…or both.  I also love the world of entertainment and hope to spend some time working within it.  So far, I’ve been doing some social media work for NYC based artists.

I’ve discovered a love of traveling and recently studied abroad in Costa Rica studying Spanish and Sustainable Development.  I stayed with a host mom who cooked the most amazing food and told me all about the culture.  I got to travel into the mountains to zipline, stay in a small community, stay in a National Park, and talk to the head researcher in the country.  I think that a lot of the time in American classrooms, there’s a disconnect between what we’re learning in the classroom and relations in the outside world.  Studying abroad in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic this past January on a course on the Challenge of Global Health and The Future of Water have both really opened my eyes to the possibilities and relations between science, business, and international interactions from in the classroom to the real world.  As a student brought up on a lot of technical maths and sciences, I never really have understood the world from a socioeconomic perspective.  I learned so much about my interests, self capability, and other cultures through these opportunities and I hope everyone takes advantage of the opportunities fund.  I know everyone says going abroad changes lives, but it’s really true — just choose the right program for you.

I’ve always been a STEM kid going to a science and tech focalized middle school and The High School for Math, Science, and Engineering.  I loved math (thanks to my dad’s influence), then science, and then engineering.  Today, I’ve seen that my passion in STEM really spreads out into the social sciences and design (which made me decide to leave the rigid academic world of engineering).  I was an engineering-architecture major in HS, which really has influenced the scope of my interests.  I’m highly interested in environmental sustainability especially in day-to-day life and in the home.  Leaving environmental engineering, I’ve planned to create a major in Sustainable Development, but I also hope to minor in photography and maybe psychology/business/media.  It’s kind of all up in the air, but this semester I’ve taken on a lot of different classes and extra curriculars that will hopefully help me decide.