Hi there!
My name is Maria Kahn, and I am going into my senior year of college at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This summer I am interning at Saint Joseph High School in downtown Brooklyn. So far, my time here at the school has been great! The only thing I am coming to regret is that I won’t be here for much longer. Which is absolutely crazy, because it feels like just yesterday that I was riding the school’s elevator up to the fifth floor to meet with my new boss; the Director of Admissions Elizabeth Peralta.
Flash forward to today as I sit in the admissions office surrounded by images of blue and gold, and I think to myself how great these past few weeks have been here at Saint Joseph’s. Right from the very beginning I was welcomed by everyone from faculty to staff to students, and what they all had in common were not only the kind smiles that they gave me but the way in which they expressed how much they loved their school. And why wouldn’t they? After all, to be in a space whose mission is to empower young women, and guide them towards becoming leaders is something that you don’t come across everyday. Even rarer than that is a school that actually follows through on their mission, and actively works to be true to their word which I am pleased to say St. Joseph does.
It has certainly been refreshing to see genuine excitement, pride, and initiative from the young women who make-up the student body. On my first day I met a young lady in the library, who was eager to tell me about her various successes on the Speech Team and show me the sketches that she had been hard at work on. Seeing that amount of enthusiasm in person felt like it was too good to be true, however, as I began combing through roughly 70+ years of yearbooks I quickly realized that this young woman that I had met was the reality of Saint Joseph High School. Within all of these yearbooks I saw funny memories that had become forever immortalized, pictures of seniors who were on there way to doing fabulous things, and images of girls who reminded me of that young lady I had met in the library on my first day. Girls who are ambitious, who work hard, and who use the opportunities that they have to their benefit. And that is nothing short of powerful.
Each yearbook that I have gone through contained evidence, if you will, of how Saint Joseph has followed through on their word of tirelessly working towards empowering women and creating leaders throughout all of the years that their doors have been open. Now I feel like it would be selfish of me not to share all of the great memories that I have uncovered these last few days. Therefore I am going to be sharing with you my favorite finds from my trip down memory lane. So make sure to be on the lookout for more posts from me!