Chelsea Pingree '09 <p><img height="250" src="Images/Academics/Religious/ChelseaPingree.jpg" width="167" />I decided to come to Emmanuel because I wanted to be a Catholic Studies major. Emmanuel offers the amazing option of doing an individualized major. Choosing an academic advisor, picking all of the courses that would make up my major, and writing a proposal was intimidating at first, but I also found it very empowering and it allowed me to center my major on the theme of social justice.</p> <p>With so many opportunities to do volunteer work at Emmanuel, it didn’t take long for social justice to become a common theme in my life outside of the classroom. During my senior year I organized a service-based internship, volunteering at the Notre Dame Montessori School in Dorchester and the School of Peace in Jamaica Plain. I made such a connection with the children at the School of Peace that I continued on after my internship ended and I still spend every Saturday there.</p> <p>To finish my senior year at Emmanuel I did a distinction project looking at the social justice issues surrounding the Living Wage movement. The paper that I wrote was recently chosen to be published in the journal of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national religious honor society of which Emmanuel has a chapter.</p> <p>I should also mention that Catholic Studies was not my only major. I also majored in Mathematics and I had the opportunity to do and learn amazing things with the support of the math faculty at Emmanuel. The summer before my senior year I interned at Pearson Education, a publishing company, working in the math and statistics department. That internship led to the job I have now, working as an Editorial Assistant on developmental math textbooks.</p> <p>The greatest lesson that I learned at Emmanuel is that your education is what you make it.</p>