Mentor
Mikaela majored in Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Post-graduation, she worked in clinical cancer research. She is currently a medical student who hopes to pursue a surgical subspecialty. Since high school, she has been heavily involved in non-profit work focusing upon a number of important topics. In undergrad, she found a passion for educational advocacy and joined Teach for America as a program ambassador. In this role, she was challenged to educate herself on the complex societal issues that govern educational access in an effort to better recruit and inform her peers. During this process, she began to reflect upon the ways in which the barriers she studied impacted her own educational journey. This period of growth proved to be transformative as she found a passion for mentorship with a particular focus on underrepresented and marginalized individuals. She has provided application support for undergraduate education, medical school, law school, and MBA program applicants.
Mikaela believes in the value of taking ownership of the unique skills and lessons gained from an individual’s life experiences. Throughout her educational journey, she found that the obstacles she encountered enriched her own educational experience and those of her peers. As a result, her mentorship places heavy emphasis on the importance of self-reflection. She not only believes that it is useful for the marketing component of the college application process, but it also assists with an individual’s ability to perform well in interviews. In addition to this, she personally understands the significance of self-reflection in aiding the process of feeling empowered by life circumstances and not in spite of them. This is particularly important to her due to the population of students that she works with.
As a mentor in the Ivy Scholars Pro Bono program, she focuses her efforts on developing and enhancing the structural components of the program. Her main goal is to create a program that provides socially informed support to its students with a long-term goal of expanding the reach of the program. In her role, she hopes to create and formalize program elements that reflect the extra support and care needed to work with this population of students. For instance, she hopes to create programming surrounding the transition to college and establishing mentorship as an undergraduate student. When she’s not studying for medical school or devoting her time to work, Mikaela likes to lose herself in the magic of classic cinema. As a self-described cinephile, she loves to explore history through the lens of film. In addition to this, she continues to maintain her practice as a classically trained pianist and travels whenever she gets the time to.
Fun fact: I read Wikipedia for fun, and I almost exclusively watch black-and-white movies.
Alma Mater: Princeton University
“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” – Oscar Wilde
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