3rd year
Major: Biological Sciences
My name is Irene Velarde. I’m a 3rd year Human Biology major. Since I’ve been at UCI, I was involved in VSA and in APSA’s RISE program. Right now I’m thinking about a career in public health that hopefully focuses on how to break down socially constructed barriers to healthcare. In the future, I hope that I will be able to travel occasionally, work with people who are passionate about what they do, and help others. In celebrating the existence of diversity as a blanket term without attempting to understand the near infinite identities being coupled with the word. In striving to educate ourselves, even a little, on the many experiences and beliefs of other people, we speak against the silence. And through this act, through struggling to understand people rather than stereotypes, we discover one of the best things about our diverse world.