Hello, my name is Lizzi White and I am from Mequon, Wisconsin which is located about 20 minutes north of Milwaukee. As a direct admit to the College of Engineering at UW-Madison, I plan on studying Environmental Engineering in hopes of working with developing communities to improve overall quality of life sustainably through engineering. Specifically, I am interested in improving water quality because clean water is such a crucial factor in human health and the ability to live as well as supporting ecosystems in which we live. Within high school, I found math and science to be the most interesting subjects. I enjoy the absoluteness of math and how you are typically either right or wrong, and I enjoy science because its overall aim is to try to understand the world around us. Throughout high school, I was very active in extracurriculars. I was the president of a tutoring based club called Kids for Kids that worked with students in inner Milwaukee schools. Furthermore, I was the founder of the Next Door Book Drive at my school district; within this drive we collected books and gave them to a foundation that works for improving early education within struggling communities in Milwaukee. Outside of volunteer work, I played club soccer my whole life and was on my high school varsity team all four years of high school. I was a starter on a state winning team during my freshman year and later became captain once I was an upperclassman.
I applied to the UW Rebels and Revolutionaries summer launch program because I thought it would be an amazing way to start my college experience. I love traveling and always knew I wanted to study abroad in college, so I was thrilled to see there was a way to engage in this desire before my freshman year. Overall, I find world history to be very fascinating, but I focused on more STEM based classes in high school and never took a rigorous history or government class. I was excited and intrigued to see how different a college level political science/history course would be in comparison to the classes I took in high school. In addition, I thought this program would be an amazing way to meet new friends. My home city and highschool are mini feeders to UW-Madison, and while a familiar face is nice to see on campus, I want to expand my network of friends and relationships throughout college. With this in mind, I am hopeful that someone on this trip will end up being a lifelong friend. When signing up for this program, I had no idea of what a typical day would look like or the tours we would be going on as a class. However, after receiving the schedule, I am most excited for the Belfast walking tour because I found the book Say Nothing to be extremely fascinating. Overall, I am extremely excited and grateful to be able to have this amazing opportunity to study abroad in Ireland before my freshman year.