Blog

On April 16th, I along with fellow scholar Karsyn Koon ‘24 and the LSP Staff’s University Program Associate Tonderai Mushipe were inducted into the honors society of Phi Kappa Phi’s UNC Charlotte chapter.

Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl blasted through the speakers of my car as I turned onto North Tryon for another day working at Charlotte Center City Partners. I’ve always been a bit of a city girl; I love giving my friends amateur walking tours of the city riddled with fun facts about the history of Charlotte.

Throughout the years, my style and intensity of running has changed a lot. And if you had asked me what type of runner I was, my answer would have changed many times too.

Before my first semester at UNC Charlotte, I wanted to go to graduate school for counseling or clinical psychology. With that as my goal, I knew research would be very important and that UNC Charlotte had a lot of cool research going on.

Although all scholars are different, a couple of things stand true. Levine seminars, Summer 1 in the backcountry of Wyoming, internships, studying abroad, Civic Engagement Projects, and the Transition Team are a part of every scholar’s experience.

Saturday November 19, 2022 was a day I will never forget! That was the day that I prepared gumbo for my fellow Levine Scholars, Levine alumni, staff and friends of UNC Charlotte. The weather was perfect. It was sunny but chilly and what we Creoles and Cajuns call “gumbo weather.” The chill in the air made the bowls of warm gumbo so welcomed.

A rush of panic raced through me when my plane landed in Valencia, Spain. The excitement from flying across the Atlantic had passed, and a new fear of being in a country where I did not speak the language set in. I never thought I’d be able to study abroad; it didn’t seem compatible with my majors and minors (computer science, biology, and chemistry). However, since the Levine Scholars Program encourages scholars to study abroad as much as possible, I thought I would explore the possibility to go for an entire semester.

Vienna wasn’t supposed to be so hot. I studied abroad in Austria’s capital for four weeks this summer during a record breaking heatwave. Most days, the average temperature was ten degrees above the typical summer average. Sometimes it was even more.

When the lights dim, I always hold my breath as the room becomes blissfully quiet, the notes of the opening song echoing through the theatre. Sometimes I don’t exhale until I’ve taken in every detail of the stage being revealed—the performers, the lights, the scenery.

My time at UNC Charlotte provided some of the most formative experiences and cherished memories of my life, and it was an honor to spend four years with (though I may be biased), the most inspiring, friendly, and encouraging peers, faculty, and mentors in our great state.