As they prepare to graduate with members of the College’s Class of 2021, students say they’re well prepared for the future.
Eden Thomas ’21 lives 25 miles from the River Campus, in Manchester, New York. Marc Haddad ’21 grew up 5,600 miles away, in Beirut, Lebanon.
As both prepare to graduate, they say their experiences at the University of Rochester have prepared them well for the future.
“The University has changed me in ways I can’t describe,” says Thomas, who majored in business and philosophy. “It has made me smarter and wiser, and it has shown me so many different sides of the world and introduced me to so many different cultures and experiences.”
MAKING A MARK: Members of the graduating College’s Class of 2021 reflect on the years from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2021 at the University, how they’ve grown while on campus, and what the next chapter holds for them. (University of Rochester video / Matthew Mann)
Those experiences came in and out of the classroom. Thomas was active as a member of Students’ Association government and the 2021 Class Council, and as a residential advisor. Haddad, a mechanical engineering major, served this year as SA vice president and also was mechanical team lead for the University’s chapter of the nonprofit Engineering World Health.
“Rochester was my first experience outside of Lebanon,” Haddad says. “The international student population was what really pushed me to be here. Having never left home, I wanted to be surrounded by a community that would understand that. And I’m such a different person than I was four years ago. Every department I’ve been involved in feels like a family.”
As graduation nears, Thomas, Haddad, and other members of the College’s Class of 2021 reflect on their time in Rochester, and their goals and dreams after they leave the River Campus.
