Each June, Dartmouth Now profiles a number of students who are about to graduate. New stories will be added each day through Thursday.
Marina Villeneuve '13 is committed to a career in journalism, and her undergraduate Fourth Estate endeavors at Dartmouth clearly attest to that. She has worked as a reporter and editor for both The Dartmouth, the campus daily, and World Outlook, the student-run international affairs journal at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.
The government major from Tewksbury, Mass., is continuing on this track at The New York Times Student Journalism Institute in Tucson, Ariz. There she will report and write for the Times under the mentorship of Times and Boston Globe reporters. The rest of Villeneuve's summer will be spent in Washington, D.C., covering Congress as an intern for The Los Angeles Times.
"In the fall I plan to travel to Bogota, Colombia, the city of my birth, from which my parents adopted me, and explore my roots," she says. In addition, Villeneuve will intern for The Washington Post's South American bureau, based in Bogota. "After that," she adds, "I'll see where life takes me."
Her life at Dartmouth has in many ways prepared her for the future she envisions. "I've learned to read, write, and dissect and formulate arguments with an open yet skeptical mind," Villeneuve says, skills that should serve her well as a journalist.
But it hasn't all been about journalism. She acted as a mentor and resource for other students, particularly freshman students, as a Dean's Office student consultant and a First Year Student Enrichment Program mentor. Among her many pursuits, Villeneuve was a member of the Latino Advisory Council, a sexual assault peer adviser, and a volunteer for ASPIRE, a William Jewett Tucker Foundation program that addresses the needs of autistic children and their families in the Upper Valley.
Villeneuve says that one of the reasons she chose Dartmouth was the promise of a challenging liberal arts education and the potential for developing strong relationships with professors.
"I'm a very different person than I was freshman year, and I owe it mainly to experiences I've had outside the classroom," says Villeneuve. "I've learned the power of helping and supporting others—not merely because it's a nice thing to do, but because you know that what happens to one member of our community impacts us all."
Read additional profiles of members of the Class of 2013:
Give a Rouse: Meet Erin Klein, Dartmouth Class of 2013
Give a Rouse: Meet Mahmud Johnson, Dartmouth Class of 2013
Give a Rouse: Meet Gurveen Chadha, Dartmouth Class of 2013
Give a Rouse: Meet Greg Buzzard, Dartmouth Class of 2013
Give a Rouse: Meet Jacob Hickson, Dartmouth Class of 2013
Give a Rouse: Meet Rachel Abendroth, Dartmouth Class of 2013
