Alumni Outcomes

What part of your MSB education do you feel has had the greatest impact on your life? Being free to explore and love what I want to do, also being not afraid to speak my mind knowing that I am smart and my opinion should always hold water even on the world stage.

What has your education/career journey been since leaving MSB? What high school and/or college did you attend? What is your current job? 

After Miss Halls I did my undergrad at Cornell in Animal Science, I graduated a year early so then I moved to DC to attend Georgetown for my Masters in Tumor Biology. After graduation I worked first for the DC Public health lab doing COVID test optimization, then between 2020-21 I worked at Champions Oncology as a Study Director running oncology study’s for Phama companies in mice. Since Oct 2021 I have worked at Atomwise as a Early Stage Drug Discovery Project Manager. Atomwise is a company located in the Bay Area in CA but I get to work remotely,  Atomwise uses AI and machine learning to determine the structures of chemical compounds which can target proteins and mutated proteins that can be drugged for improving the outcomes of rare diseases and cancers. I was also able to publish my pancreatic cancer research from graduate school in a high impact scientific journal (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33307028/). I am hoping to start a PhD program in the fall of 2023 in cancer biology or immunology.

How was your transition to high school after MSB?

My transition to high school was quite smooth. While a bit daunting at first, I started high school with some of my friends from Montessori and very quickly settled in. I think the other students were excited to have new people join their class. Going to public school, the academic style was very different, but nevertheless I felt very prepared for my classes. If anything, I was excited by the new challenges they brought.

What lessons, tools, or memories do you have from MSB? 

I think the biggest takeaways from my Montessori experience were a sense of independence and social skills. Before Montessori, I went to a very rigid school where we were told to follow the teacher. At Montessori, we were allowed to decide what interested and excited us and to explore those possibilities freely. On a personal level, I became interested in fashion design while at Montessori. I was encouraged to explore that interest, and beyond that, I was given the tools to teach myself what I wanted to learn. These skills drove me to build a portfolio throughout high school, study fashion design in college, land an exciting job after graduation, and now, to start my own brand. Socially, I always felt so lucky to have had the education I did at Montessori. Conflict resolution conversations, student-led discussions, and personal reflection activities gave me an opportunity that most adolescents don’t have to learn how to handle difficult situations and build healthy relationships. Most of my favorite memories are around the freedom I had with my friends--being outside building structures, playing “games” (that were actually lessons), and even mundane things like doing laundry together. And of course, the trips that we took were unforgettable!

How do you think Montessori education prepared you differently from your peers?

The most notable difference was my time management skills. Having to plan out my work for the week at MSB, and then ensure it was executed in time, taught me how to take projects into my own hands and plan ahead so they were completed without having to cram. In high school, this meant starting essays or studying for exams well before my peers, knowing that the assignments would need time to be done well. High school is a new experience for every student, so I didn’t feel that I was behind or ahead of anyone in terms of my preparedness. My advantage, though, was knowing how to learn in the way that worked best for me. Also, I think many students came to high school with a sense of hatred or resentment toward the institution of school, which I never felt. Enjoying school, and the process of learning, is something that has served me so well throughout my life.

What part of your MSB education do you feel has had the greatest impact on your life? Having the ability to choose what subjects I wanted to dive deep into during my time in the elementary program (without doing so I may not have found my love for the biological sciences), as well as shifting into the adolescent program and having lessons actually taught by guides, making the shift into a public high school a much easier process. 

What has your education/career journey been since leaving MSB? What high school and/or college did you attend? What is your current job? 

Since leaving MSB, I graduated from Monument Mountain Regional High School, as well as from Stonehill College with a degree in both Biology and Environmental Studies. Out of college, I worked in a veterinary clinic in Lee, MA until I was accepted into Lincoln Memorial University's College of Veterinary Medicine program. 

What part of your MSB education do you feel has had the greatest impact on your life? 

MSB had innumerable incredible impacts on my life and the person that I am today, and I find that they are still rippling out into my life in new ways and permutations every day. Most specifically, MSB honed a deep, independent curiosity within me —a curiosity that is not limited to academics (though certainly includes them), but also incorporates people, the natural world, philosophy, social systems, and problem solving in my day-to-day life. I feel that I am a student everywhere I go in the world, and navigating my life through the lens of curiosity and discovery is a very meaningful feeling that I think absolutely originated and was fostered in my time at MSB. 

What part of your MSB education do you feel has had the greatest impact on your life? 

The biggest impact from Montessori in my life is definitely the life long friends that I made there. I still love getting together with the others from my graduating class even though we don’t get to see each other often, it feels like a family reunion.

What part of your MSB education do you feel has had the greatest impact on your life? The community and the supportive environment that I felt so comfortable to spread my wings in and do the best I possibly could.