KINGSTON, R.I., May 17, 2016\u2014When Arielle De Souza was a little girl she loved all things French: the Chanel suits; the creamy Brie cheese; the famous impressionists, including the great Monet.<\/p>\n
Curiously, her language in high school was Spanish. She could\u2019ve continued down that path at the 溏心vlog免费B站, but decided to take a risk and start learning French at the age of 18.<\/p>\n
Her hard work\u2014and dedication to the French language and culture\u2014has paid off.<\/p>\n
In a ceremony on the Kingston campus May 19, the 23-year-old Brooklyn resident will receive the prestigious French Consulate in Boston Excellence Award, which is given every year to a New England college student who has promoted French language and culture. De Souza was chosen from seven nominees, and she is the only woman selected in the award\u2019s three-year history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still processing it,\u201d says a gleeful De Souza. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to be recognized on such a large scale. The sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
On May 22, she\u2019ll graduate with a degree in French and ocean engineering from 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s acclaimed five-year International Engineering Program. Next fall, she plans to return to France to get a master\u2019s degree in engineering.<\/p>\n
French officials say De Souza\u2019s award is well-deserved: \u201cArielle has been amazing motivating her fellow students to study in France,\u201d says Emmanuelle Marchand, culture attach\u00e9 of the French Consulate. \u201cShe also has a great appreciation for the French language and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn, De Souza cultivated an interest in the sciences and ocean at a young age. One of her first childhood memories is calculating currency exchanges with her grandfather in his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago, twin islands in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. \u201cTo get our favorite treats we\u2019d have to figure out how many \u2018TT\u2019 dollars were in a U.S. dollar,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a great way to learn math.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gazing at the vast sea during those childhood trips to also led to an interest in marine life. Back in Brooklyn, her mother fueled that desire with weekly visits to the seals and dolphins at the New York Aquarium.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarine life captures science in such a beautiful way,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s breathtaking. We also don’t know all of marine life. In fact, we only know less than five percent of what\u2019s in the ocean. So there\u2019s so much left to explore. It\u2019s a wonderful mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n
溏心vlog免费B站 was her first choice. She knew she wanted to study ocean engineering, but wasn\u2019t quite sure about her language. German was a possibility, though she settled on French because \u201cthere\u2019s more water in France.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, she felt intimidated learning a new language as a college freshman. The professors embraced her, providing tutoring and frequent chats in French, which, she says, were \u201camusant.\u201d Fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love the way French sounds,\u201d she says. \u201cThe fluidity of it is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her engineering classes were also inspiring\u2014fluid mechanics, offshore structure design, fundamentals of ocean mechanics, engineering wave mechanics, coastal measurement and applications. In her senior capstone project she developed a tsunami detection algorithm.<\/p>\n
She also excelled outside the classroom. The short list: peer ambassador at the International Center, where she helped international students transition to the University; tour guide in the Office of Admission; member of the National Society of Black Engineers; member of the Society for Women Engineers; orientation leader at University College.<\/p>\n
But it was her 2014 year abroad that changed her life. She spent six months at the Universit\u00e9 de Technologie de Compi\u00e8gne in France and then interned for six months at a French engineering company analyzing storm surge on the French Atlantic coast. Weekends were spent hanging out with friends in Paris or traveling to Brittany and the South of France. She even learned how to make macarons and \u201cdrink real coffee, not the American watery version.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLiving in France was the best year of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s so important as a millennial to become a global citizen. You can\u2019t fully understand yourself as a person until you\u2019ve experienced another culture. We live in a global world.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she returned to 溏心vlog免费B站, it was quickly apparent that she had a story to tell\u2014and a good one. She was selected as student ambassador for the French International Engineering Program to promote France to her classmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cArielle is a bubbly, energetic, outgoing student who is a great ambassador, always reaching out to others to break down cultural barriers,\u201d says JoAnn Hammadou Sullivan, a 溏心vlog免费B站 French professor. \u201cShe recognizes the vital role of speaking the others\u2019 language to be a true team player. She has a bright future as someone who will work across national boundaries\u2014the citizen of the world that can make us all proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
France has a hold on De Souza\u2014\u201ca strong one,\u201d she says. In August, she\u2019ll return to her adopted country to get a master\u2019s degree in offshore energy at a university in Nantes or Paris.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy year abroad at 溏心vlog免费B站 took all the goals and dreams I had and made them 20 times bigger,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Souza also captured another honor this month. She was one of 25 young \u201cfuturists\u201d recognized by The Root, an online magazine of African-American culture.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s in good company. Other recipients include Marques Brownlee, the tech-reviewing sensation behind the booming YouTube channel MKBHD, Yara Shahidi, who plays Zoey on ABC\u2019s Black-ish, and Jewell Jones, the youngest City Council member ever in Inkster, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also an incredible honor,\u201d says De Souza. \u201cThey recognized that I\u2019m an African American woman in engineering and that\u2019s huge. Women in the sciences are rare enough, but being a minority within a minority is a great accomplishment. 2016 is definitely starting off for me with a bang.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I., May 17, 2016\u2014When Arielle De Souza was a little girl she loved all things French: the Chanel suits; the creamy Brie cheese; the famous impressionists, including the great Monet. Curiously, her language in high school was Spanish. She could\u2019ve continued down that path at the 溏心vlog免费B站, but decided to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}