Growing up, I never imagined that I would attend college at all. I had other plans for my future, and college, especially college abroad, was never something that interested me. My dream was always to become the greatest person I could be for my community and my country. That dream has not changed, but the path toward it certainly has. Everything began one summer when a group of Tufts students visited my high school in Rwanda. Their visit sparked something in me and made me consider, for the first time, the possibility of applying to college.

I grew up in a community where many of the people we admired most were soldiers who had fought for the liberation of Rwanda and helped rebuild the country after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Their courage, sacrifice, and commitment to service inspired me from a young age. Because of that, I came to believe that military service was the primary way to serve my country. In many ways, I had closed my eyes to other forms of service and leadership…

When I get a second in my spare day either alone or with my friends, I go off campus into Medford/Somerville. Since there’s many things to do, here is a tier list to share my favourite activities that everyone should check out at least once!

If it’s your last day on Earth, you must go to:

My favorite Thai restaurant is Dakzen, which is in Davis Square, accessible by a pleasant 10-15 minute walk, our Tufts Shuttle every 30 minutes or by the 96 and 94 MBTA buses. Dakzen has an affordable and authentic menu of Thai cuisine such as my favourites like khao grapow (a fried rice) and khao soi (a noodle dish). And, I never leave without their homemade Thai milk tea. Their colorful environment is the ultimate meet up spot for my friends and I all year long, even in the colder winter months.

Also in Davis Square, the Somerville Theater is a must! Unlike your typical cinemas, this is one of the oldest movie and opera houses in the United States designed specifically with 35mm and 70mm film…

The college search process is an especially stressful one, and often tours are a monumental part of it as one of the best ways to get a complete picture of a college campus, one that can feel hard to get from websites or statistics. At the same time though, it’s not always easy to use these events to their fullest potential. During my own college search, I found that visits and tours could blend together into an information soup. I struggled a lot to keep everything organized, especially regarding info in areas I may not have been as interested in. As a tour guide, I've met a lot of people that have made a more productive use of their tour experience than I did. So, I wanted to share some of the most effective questions you can use to maximize your own college tours!

“How did you adapt to campus life during your first year?”

This question is especially great if you’re more curious about what living in college is like after hearing the basic information about first year life. Learning…

As I prepare for my final year at Tufts studying Studio Art and Human Factors Psychology, I’ve become increasingly grateful for my first two years living on the Medford/Somerville campus as an art student. Whether it was late-night chats in common rooms or simply running into friends on the way to class, living on campus was a really lovely way to build relationships and begin to feel connected to the community around me.

During my first two years at Tufts I lived in Tilton Hall and Harleston Hall. Looking back, some of my favorite college memories happened in those buildings. That, for me, has meant tons of movie nights in my residence hall with friends, tea parties and study nights in common rooms, and making hot chocolate and cookies together during the first snow of the year. In a residence hall as large as Harleston Hall, you really get to make friends naturally. You just start recognizing people from the laundry room, run into classmates on your way downstairs, and before long…

Sitting in front of my portal late last August in the sweltering summer, I was overwhelmed and excited by the limitless variety of classes. Navigating the portal itself was a challenge, as I began planning my packed schedule with several back up plans. As a Combined Degree student, I am working towards both a Bachelor's of Fine Arts and a Bachelor's of Arts in just 5 years. I was interested in art history and art but the intersection of international relations and art was intriguing. In the first semester, I focused on expanding new interests through my distribution requirements. For instance, in social sciences I completed Introduction to International Relations, where I was among around 200 students in a lecture hall along with a 30 student recitation. This class brought surprises as we had challenging discussions about topics like the application of the Thucydides Trap in today’s political scene. After this course, I realized that I am not interested in furthering pursuing this subject…

There’s a point in the internship search where you find something you actually want to do, and then realize it’s unpaid or in a city you probably can’t afford.

That was my situation when I came across a Sales and Marketing internship on Handshake. What stood out immediately was that the role was being offered through the Derby Entrepreneurship Center Internship Program at Tufts. I hadn’t really thought much about funding opportunities before, but seeing that made me look into it more seriously.

After I secured the internship, which I’ll be doing this summer, I applied for the Derby Center grant tied to the position. The process itself was pretty straightforward, but definitely required some thought. Most of the application centered around a few essays where I had to explain what I would be doing, what I wanted to learn, and how the experience connected to my longer-term goals. 

I also had to think about the financial side of things. While I could have made the internship work without…

Hi readers, 

So you want to study engineering, but you also want to be civically engaged. Well, then, you’ve come to the right place! Here at Tufts, I have been able to do both. In high school I remember how much I loved to volunteer and help out my local community and when coming to college I was worried that because I was pursuing an engineering degree I wouldn’t be able to do so. 

Tufts does a good job of offering many opportunities to be civically engaged and I often find it really rewarding to be able to do so because when I am wrapped up in equations, circuits and labs, volunteering and helping out the community keeps me grounded and reminds me that I want to use my engineering skills to help people.

Some things that Tufts offers that I haven’t been apart of but are popular are:

Tufts Animal Aid

A club where you can walk local dogs in the neighborhood

Tufts Community Day 

A whole day where students and faculty invite the Medford and Somerville residents to come and listen…

After navigating the competitive process of securing a finance internship for my junior summer, all the way back during my sophomore year, I found myself wanting to get more involved on campus at Tufts. That desire led me to an annual end-of-year food event hosted by the African Student Organization (ASO) called Fena Fena, held on the Tisch rooftop last spring. There, I had the chance to meet and connect with current ASO members, build genuine rapport, and eventually decide to apply for a leadership role. I went on to be offered the position of Treasurer for this school year, an offer I ecstatically accepted.

Being a Treasurer of a college club is a very different experience from anything in high school. It's not just a title for the sake of having one, you are part of a team, and you function as part of the nucleus that keeps everything running. As Treasurer, I'm responsible for managing the club's transactions and budget, and working closely with the Tufts Financial Office and Treasury…

As I sit in the overwhelmingly and insanely busy Hong Kong airport, I can't help but reminisce about the past three months that have gone by much faster than my mind can comprehend. For the past week, of course, I had known I was leaving soon, but I could not comprehend it until now. I am no longer surrounded by the seven other people who make up my goofy and kind cohort, nor am I being guided by my incredible instructors, P’Bo and Hannah.

We did an activity during our excursion in Chiang Dao where there were many quotes, and we picked three: our favorite, one that challenged us, and one that changed the way we thought about something. Though I cannot remember the quote word for word, to sum it up, it said that we would never be the same person as we were in that exact moment at that time. That concept slowly began to haunt me (for lack of a better word) as my departure date from Chiang Mai came closer and closer. The quote hit me hardest as I said my last goodbyes to my peers and waved…

When people think about what makes Tufts a great school, the rigorous academics, bountiful extracurricular activities, and prime Boston location are often among the first attributes that come to mind. One often-overlooked, albeit in my opinion, equally important aspect is Tufts’ mascot, Jumbo the Elephant. Formerly the legendary centerpiece of P.T. Barnum’s circus, Jumbo has embodied Tufts for over 100 years, and his influence spans athletic fields, classrooms, and university lore. Simply, Jumbo provides Tufts with one of the most unique identities of any college in the country. Hence, as Jumbos, I feel that we should do our best to incorporate Jumbo’s wisdom and presence into our daily lives. Here are three ways to do just that. 

1. Walk by the Jumbo statue

Situated right in front of Barnum Hall on the Academic Quad, Jumbo’s 12-foot by 18-foot bronze incarnation has inhabited the locale in its current form since 2015. Whether you’re on your way to class, headed to the nearby Tisch…

After spending more than a total of 24 hours traveling, I was excited to see my parents. It had been the fastest three months of my life, and I was still trying to process everything as I sat in the Chiang Mai airport and then the Hong Kong airport. I ended up having plenty of time to reflect when I landed in Hong Kong, seeing as my flight kept getting delayed. All jokes set aside, as I walked through the doors at Logan to see my parents there waiting for me, I felt relief but also a longing to go back to the place I had just left. As we walked through the maze of Logan Airport, I thought about the stories I wanted to tell my parents on the car ride home. There was so much I wanted to say; however, my exhaustion caught up to me as I had fallen asleep as soon as the car started moving.

I was excited to give everyone their gifts and explain their meanings and provenance. I was particularly excited to give my sister the gifts for her wedding. She got married just three days after I got…

Hi Readers,

Something really cool I got to be a part of was working for Medtronic the summer after my first-year at Tufts. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a global medical device company that has a wide array of products. I got to work on one of their manufacturing sites where they made millions of long, skinny, flexible tubes that would go inside the body for things like heart valve replacement and deep brain stimulation. 

What I focused on more specifically was the technologies that make the different catheters (long skinny flexible tubes), and the intricate process it takes to manufacture them. This internship was between the summer of my first-year and sophomore year, under the Women in Science and Engineering program. So I was a part of a large cohort of female interns who were all rising freshmen and sophomores, trying to get experience in the medical device industry. While I was working at a site north of Boston, I also got to go to the Boston site and look at all the…

I’ll never forget the first day I met my friend Brian. It was the Sunday before Labor Day, September 3, 2023, three days before I began my first year at Tufts. That night, I joined a group of around 15 other new Jumbos on a trip to Yamato II, an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant in Copley Square. Since our group was so large, we split into four tables, and I was randomly placed across from Brian. While we stuffed our stomachs with sushi, we bonded over our shared New Jersey roots and propensity for making jokes at the expense of the New York Jets. Over the last three years, Brian has become one of my closest friends at Tufts, and he’s currently one of my housemates. 

A little over two and a half years later, on March 14, 2026, Brian was the first familiar face I saw in a crowd of busy travelers, this time nearly 3,500 miles from Boston, at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. He and some of my other friends from Tufts were beginning a week-long exploration of Europe for their…

Every Community Health major at Tufts is required to complete an internship before they graduate. It is an incredible opportunity for professional development, and the department has countless resources connect students with opportunities in the Boston area. 

This semester, I am a Global Community Health intern at Partners in Health. Partners in Health is based out of the Prudential Center, which means that I get to finally live out my dream of working in the fanciest corporate building in Boston. I am also working with a research team at Harvard Medical School, so I split my time between the med school campus and the PIH office.

At the beginning of the internship, it was really intimidating to be surrounded by so many accomplished and intense people. I am not a medical student by any means (and I do in fact faint at the sight of blood) so I spent most of my first day at the med school dodging any potential patient interaction. 

However, as the internship went on, I realized how much…