During the summer, current Carter junior Marissa Llamas visited Harvard University on a trip sponsored by the Texas Graduate Center on June 25 through June 28.
Marissa was invited to by carter teacher, Queen, a Harvard alumnus. She has known Llamas since her freshman year. Although Llamas has never been one of her students, she has participated in UIL mathematics, one of the events that Queen coaches, for the past school years.
Llamas said,” I’ve been with her since freshman year, even though I’ve never have had her for a class, I was still in UIL mathematics, and like I’ve stuck with her, so I guess she stuck with me by allowing me to go to Harvard.”
Llamas hopes to one day become a math teacher and teach high school students.
“Right now I just want to become a math teacher; I like math because it is not like other subjects like in English where you need to analyze, with math it is plain and simple, and most of the time people don’t get math, but for me, it just clicks.”
The Texas Graduate Center in Edinburg gives this fantastic opportunity to students around the valley by fully funding the trip.
“They paid for basically everything. They paid for hotels, planes, food, they even gave us spending money, so basically, all we needed to bring is ourselves. I was lucky enough that the Texas Graduate Center paid for everything.”
“There was 33 of us going on the plan from the valley, I met a lot of new funny and cool people from our high schools from the valley,” said Llamas
After visiting Harvard, Marissa stated that she is currently unsure about applying, but says that this opportunity has unpacked her life tremendously.
“This trip expanded my opportunity to go, because I usually feel very confined to just Texas, and that I can’t branch out and go to other universities. Getting the chance to meet people from the valley who have attended Harvard is inspiring because it makes me think, oh if they can do it, why can’t I?” said Llamas.
