Paola Evangelista – Ceramics

Ceramics teacher Paola Evangelista said to “experience as much as you can,” a piece of advice that she clearly embodied.

Evangelista, who grew up in Connecticut, was involved in volleyball, debate, hospital volunteer work, and Upward Bound, an organization that gives kids from lower-income families the opportunity to take extra classes over the summer to prepare them for college. “[The program] was fun because it filled my summer time and also, if I ever had study hall, I could go there and have [access to] resources for whatever project that I was working on… or ask an instructor from there to help me with whatever I needed. And I made a lot of friends too.”

When it came to volunteering at the hospital, Evangelista says that while she wasn’t interested in pursuing anything in the medical field, “it was interesting to see something [different], to see something that I wasn’t really interested in… it was good to get [myself] out and experience more.”