Solange S. (IN A NUTSHELL)

Hi! I’m Solange, a rising sophomore at Stanford University. I grew up in New York City and I attended Dalton, a private school in Manhattan, for 13 years. At Stanford, I’m currently on the club soccer team, working as a tour guide, and doing some linguistics research in the fall. I’m still figuring out my major, but am leaning towards an interdisciplinary major called Symbolic Systems that merges Computer Science, Math, Linguistics, Philosophy, Psychology, and some Social Systems courses. I'm really excited about this major because it allows me to strengthen my mathematical, linguistics, and social science interests, while also enabling me to have a strong foundation in courses like Computer Science, which I feel is definitely an important skill to have.

Outside of my academic interests, some of my favorite things to do for fun are go for a run on a hiking trail called “The Dish,” or read on the several lawns on my campus. My identity stems from all my micro-communities, which include the club soccer team that I was a part of for almost 10 years, to my various extracurriculars within my school, to my neighborhood, Harlem, which is predominantly inhabited by people from across the African diaspora — I’m second generation Haitian and Sierra Leonean. In my senior year of high school, I was captain of my school’s soccer and track teams while also competing in club soccer outside of school. My other focuses were classical piano and working for my school's administration, where I focused on admissions and anti-racist systemic changes. I also worked closely with a young 8th grader whom I’d been tutoring for the past 4 years at a public school a few blocks from my house. Throughout my whole life I’ve had the chance to exist in a way that all my little identities, whether that be athlete or musician or student, can flourish. I’m excited to aid my mentees in expressing the various layers of their identities during our sessions together because of how grateful I feel to have been able to do that myself. In college, I’ve discovered a serious interest in storytelling. All my life, I have been sharing stories through my musical expression, like a story told in a piano piece by Chopin, however, more recently I’ve started taking photos of people around me, and specifically within Harlem. Through this, I’ve been able to speak with so many people across my five block radius that I wouldn’t have otherwise met. My love of stories and the power of stories to connect people are exactly why mentorship is so important to me. When I first started working with the eighth grade student years ago, he was incredibly shy and hesitant to really interact with me. However, once I started asking him questions about his interests, or what made him laugh, or even what he disliked most about school, he started warming up. Of course, this is a bare minimum interaction. However, I got the sense that few teachers or academic mentors of his had really taken the time to get to know him as an individual. From the years of working together, even during Covid, we created a relationship where he would excitedly inquire into my life, and I would inquire into his. As a mentor, and academic advisor, my hope is that my mentee feels prioritized and heard throughout our time together. As someone who has had an academic mentor myself, I believe that the best relationships are founded on a deliberate effort to build a partnership of camaraderie and trust. With my mentee, I hope to teach analytical writing and math as those are things I definitely struggled with as a younger student but feel passionate about now. As a college student, I have more to learn than ever, and in my mentees, I look forward to instilling a love of learning and confidence in their ability to grow.