Communication Studies, Class of 2022
Future journalist, senior Carolyn Kuimelis, aspires to live her life and build a career with integrity and the search for truth.
In the final quarter of her senior year at Santa Clara, Carolyn is excited and a bit nervous. “It's just adulthood after this,” she says. But the truth is, she has been adulting for quite some time. As a communication major and editor-in-chief of the weekly student newspaper, The Santa Clara, Carolyn is one busy senior. In spite of the challenges she faced during the pandemic, she feels lucky for such a great learning experience.
Carolyn is also grateful for just being able to attend Santa Clara—and thankful to generous Santa Clara Fund donors who helped make her dream a reality. She wouldn't have been able to attend SCU and experience it to its fullest without scholarship assistance and adds, “The past two years have been especially hard on my family financially."
Having attended public school, she was not familiar with what a Jesuit education meant, but now says, “I have absolutely grown to appreciate it. I think it presents a really robust framework for understanding human flourishing. It’s helpful in terms of evaluating society, and our systems and policies to discover what is best for us, in our entire sense of being.”
Through the Ignatian Center and with assistance from the Santa Clara Fund, Carolyn experienced immersion trips, including one to the Arizona-Mexico border where she learned firsthand about immigration policy and its importance to development around the world. She also realized how significant it was to “make such meaningful and beautiful connections” with others. On campus, she has formed lifelong bonds with classmates, including her roommate of all four years.
When asked about her favorite aspect of her Santa Clara experience, Carolyn doesn’t hesitate, saying, “I love all the faculty—they have given me so much personal encouragement and support when I needed it, and I think it has shaped me in a positive way.
Considering life after SCU (and her future as a journalist), she notes one constant personal value she will take with her. “I want to be a person of integrity and the search for truth,” she says, “which I think aligns well with journalism. It’s what we strive for at Santa Clara, and that is what I strive for in my own life, too. I want to live in a way that feels like authentically right, ethical, and good.”
This is what human flourishing is all about. It is at the core of our mission, preparing the next generation of thoughtful leaders, thinkers, creators, and changemakers to lead lives of passion and purpose. Something that Carolyn is already in full pursuit of.
-Carrie Jensen
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