New Year!

Wow... it's already the end of December and New Year's Day is right around the corner. I'm thankful for a lot this year: I was able to travel again, help people learn about design and their own potential, develop more skills, discover more about myself.... and, despite numerous challenges and some disappointments, I'm still pushing forward. I know I neglected this blog during the fall semester. (Sorry.) However, I hope to pick things up again in the spring. I'm coming up on my final and last semester in college -- which sounds just as crazy to me as it probably does to you.

**Recap** 
I did finish my report, An overview of economic theory and approaches for evaluating the productivity of water on Santiago Island in Cape Verde, from this summer with INIDA. Hopefully, I can publish out-of-house too. Also, I presented at the 2017 Tanner Conference on my activities in Cape Verde this summer, and it seems that a number of people liked my brief talk.

Then, this fall semester, I really filled my Github repositories with several python projects from Software Design, particularly the web application SMART Scheduler (which I hope to continue and adapt to other colleges as I find more time.) I learned about systems engineering and investigated the many levels of system management for the US's large food waste problem for my Olin class.  I studied the economics of development, pulling together a sample project proposal for a randomized control trial ("RCT" for short) to study the effect of mobile banking on loan-repayment and take-up for microfinance institutions in none other than Cape Verde, Africa. (I was very much inspired by my summer.) And, now, I am preparing for another wintersession program this January -- the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute of Global Affairs. I'm incredibly excited! I'll start the new year off with a number of enlightening lectures about global issues and a team project focusing on one facet of this year's theme.

Spring semester will then bring my final economics course Strategy and Information and a studio art course at Wellesley. I will continue to take classes at Olin to boost my skills before going into professional work, and I am particularly excited about the course Affordable and Design Entrepreneurship which deals hands-on with development issues. I am delaying graduate school, so I've started looking around for a summer internship under the Albright Institute and, hopefully, I'll find one that leads to a job. Add in some ECE courses too -- and I have a full semester. All in all, things are still looking up and I'm going to keep working towards my dreams.
Happy New Year's to you too!

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