BVU 'Dreamer' Didn't Quit Dreaming About Travel
Iran Carlos looks toward being a first-generation college graduate as she completes her final semester at BVU through an internship in Washington, D.C.
Iran Carlos eyed travel opportunities available at Buena Vista University when she was a student at Belmond-Klemme High School, narrowing her college choice. BVU touted its plethora of study abroad and experiential learning programs which piqued her interest.
“I wanted to study in Japan,” Carlos remembers.
Dreams of residing as a student overseas, however, changed in recent years, forcing Carlos, a “Dreamer” who was born in Mexico and brought to the U.S. by her parents at the age of nine months, to reevaluate. Rather than forget about traveling altogether, she applied for and earned a position with The Washington Center for Internships & Academic Seminars and its semester-long experience in the nation’s capital, where Carlos finds herself in this, her final semester as a BVU undergraduate.
“I am the first one in my family to attend college. My parents said that no matter what, I’d go to college..."
Iran Carlos
“I went to the Senate impeachment hearings and saw Sens. Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Lindsey Graham,” says Carlos, a political science major now working and studying in the world’s political epicenter.
“When it was advised that D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients like me not leave the country, I turned my focus to opportunities in the U.S. and was advised by Dr. Andrea Frantz, Professor of Digital Media, and Dr. Bradley Best, Professor of Political Science, to look at The Washington Center as a possibility,” she says. “I am so glad I did.”
Carlos serves as an intern at the Ecological Society of America. She aids officials with the organization as they conduct efforts on social media and the Internet. She works to promote the group’s events and will conduct a workshop with the organization in April.
“I’m leading a workshop on how to conduct interviews in digital media because I’ve done a lot of that type of work at BVU,” she says. “I’ll lead high school students on how to conduct a proper interview and they’ll take those concepts and immediately apply them in a follow-up session.”
Carlos served as co-manager of KBVU, the radio station on campus, before she left for Washington. She’s also president of OASIS (Organized for the Active Support of International Students), has served with the Student Activities Board, and volunteers as an assistant to Frantz as she teaches classes in U.S. Citizenship at Storm Lake Public Library.
“I am the first one in my family to attend college,” Carlos says. “My parents said that no matter what, I’d go to college and, no matter what, they’d pay for it. They feel that strongly about it.”
As she picks up tasks and assignment for the Ecological Society of America, Carlos masters finding her way around in the nation’s capital, one of five BVU students currently serving internships there. Carlos also spends her time fine-tuning her resume as she commences on a job search. She’ll process through the Victory Arch for BVU’s Commencement in May and will then embark on a career.
“I want potential employers to see how I can work with different people while balancing many different tasks and projects,” she says.