Greetings to the HGHS Family!
My name is Laiyen Suarez. I graduated from HGHS in 2011. Directly after graduation (and after my trip to China with fellow HGHS Chinese students), I attended Miami Dade Honors College because I wanted to have a strong, holistic foundation. I majored in International Relations. While at Miami Dade College, I participated in so many activities and organizations that I couldn't possibly fit them all in one post. The organizations that most influenced my time at Miami Dade College were MDC Model United Nations (I participated as a delegate of Ukraine in NMUN's 2012 New York Conference) and MDC Confucius Institute. I've also published a few literary works in MDC North Campus' creative arts magazine, AXIS.
I applied to several transfer universities after MDC Honors. I was accepted in John Cabot University (Rome, Italy), Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA), Florida International University (Miami, FL), American University (Washington DC), University of Florida (Gainesville, FL), Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL), Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, FL), and Georgetown University (Washington DC).
As of 2013, I attend FIU. I major in Geography and minor in International Relations. I chose geography because I'm very interested in studying regional and world populations. I am also pursuing a certificate in Asian Globalization and Latin America. I plan to take some classes to familiarize myself with Japanese culture and a basic class of Japanese language. I know some Mandarin Chinese. I'm very grateful to Ms. Liu and HGHS for sparking my interest in Mandarin. I took three years of Chinese at HGHS and a short summer class at MDC. This summer, I once again traveled to China and studied at Beijing International Chinese College (BICC) for two weeks (BICC is just one of the things I owe thanks to MDC Confucius Institute). While I don't intend to take Chinese classes at FIU because of credit restraints, I do actively seek out to practice and study it on my own as much as I can (I still have a very long way to go until I can speak Mandarin at an intermediate/expert level) because I really enjoy learning Mandarin. This past semester, I joined FIU's club, "Let's Talk Mandarin" to to review basic Chinese phrases and words I've learned. I currently work as a tutor at ISPROOF Foundation, a reading program for young students (usually low income) in South Florida.
By mid-2014, I'll apply to the JET (The Japan Exchange and Teaching) program. If I get accepted, I'll be teaching English to Japanese students for a year. Once I return to the US, I plan to pursue my graduate degree. Most likely, I'll engage my graduate studies in a private, out-of-state university. My biggest dream is to continue globetrotting (I've visited a few countries thus far, such as Austria, Germany, and China) and find a career in geography that fully satisfies my need to teach, analyze, and create projections about our society.
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Thank you and I wish you a happy new year.
Best,
Laiyen Suarez
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