2011 Entering Class Profiles

Mariana d'Abreu e Souza , 2013, Brazil

Why I chose Fletcher: Fletcher was the only school I applied to, after researching most, if not all, of the best programs out there. I believe that fact says much in itself. Fletcher seems to have been at the forefront since its inception, adopting a progressive approach, geared toward finding new solutions for global problems, rather than trying to fit them into preexisting patterns. This has to be the most progressive program I know of; to me it almost feels like an organic being, which evolves as we speak. That is something I love about being at Fletcher: the feeling that we are learning and evolving at the same pace as the world changes, that there’s so much to absorb from everyone and everything around us, that if we blink we risk missing something important.

On a quintessential Fletcher moment: My quintessential Fletcher moment was last fall when I came to visit a friend who lived on campus. As he walked me from Blakeley Hall to the shuttle stop, we crossed paths with three different groups of people, all of which stopped for short conversations. Through those brief exchanges I learned about micro financing in India, crisis management in Uganda, and urban development in Colombia. I am not kidding. The shuttle stop is only one block away from Blakeley, and I was able to learn all that. I was hooked.