"I grew up outside of Boston in Jewish day school and summer camp so having a Jewish community was something I was used to, and something I always knew I was looking for in college. I came to Hillel right away, for the first Shabbat, but what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as I think of moving into my future Jewish life outside of college is kid’s are just given communities that they take for granted, but in college I’ve really appreciated the act of building and forming community. The really great thing about Hillel is that we’re given a space, a building, and a structure but at the end of the day, we have to build the community. I’ve appreciated that both in terms of my leadership roles at Hillel and also in creating groups of friends here. A lot of my closest friends are people I met that first Shabbat or at the orientation BBQ and though Hillel created the place for us to meet, in order to establish the friendships we had to work on it. When I was welcoming chair there were a lot of programs during Orientation and it was a lot of work but I definitely learned organizational skills that have served me well since then. I also learned the importance of working with others, because Programming Board was encouraged to work together and support each other even though we all had separate events to plan. We were also expected to help each other grow as leaders and I think that’s really important. Then I was Vice President of Community Relations and as an executive board we had a lot of great conversations about what this community should and could look like and big picture goals. In that role I was also working with the Israel groups which was interesting because it’s not something that I personally engaged in beforehand, but I liked being able to support them in a nonpolitical way and be involved in Israel conversation and the programming about Israel without the involvement of a specific group. Jewish community is also something I’ve been thinking about a lot because next year before med school there is no specific community designated for me so I’m gonna have to find that myself, but I think the experiences I’ve had at Hillel in terms of learning how to build community will help me wherever I end up."
Next year Sarah is planning to get the most out of every moment before returning to graduate school.
Next year Sarah is planning to get the most out of every moment before returning to graduate school.
