Brandon DeBot ’14:Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Since working as a volunteer coordinator for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in his hometown, DeBot has had an interest in politics and policy. He began to pursue this interest during his freshman year, taking government and public policy classes immediately and balancing his academic courseload with the rigors of Division I tennis.

DeBot said his work in the Rockefeller Center’s Policy Research Shop has been especially meaningful. By researching policy topics and preparing debriefs for New Hampshire state legislatures, he said, he felt like he has made a “tangible impact” on the policy process.

However, DeBot called his involvement with the men’s tennis team his most meaningful experience at Dartmouth.

“I enjoyed every day of it,” DeBot said.

One particular moment on the court, he said, defined his experience at the College. Facing Princeton at home as a sophomore with the score of the match tied at three, DeBot’s final match would determine the contest’s winning team. With friends and family watching, DeBot clinched the victory for the Big Green.

“All the work we had put in up to that point, that really validated all of it,” DeBot said. “I was incredibly excited to be able to win in that environment.”

DeBot advises underclassmen to be wary of over committing themselves.

“At least for me, my most meaningful experiences have been not necessarily the quantity but the quality,” DeBot said. “It’s fine to sign up for a lot of different clubs and programs, but try to find the ones you love and commit to those wholeheartedly.”

After graduation, DeBot will work as a research assistant at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank based in Washington D.C.

Chelsea Estevez ’14:East Norwich, New York

When Estevez was accepted to Dartmouth, she imagined she would major in environmental studies or music and continue taking French. But after sitting in on an Arabic class as a prospective student at Dimensions, Estevez “immediately fell in love with the language.”

“It struck me that Arabic was exactly what I wanted to do in college,” Estevez said.

Estevez began studying Arabic her freshman fall and hasn’t stopped, majoring in Arabic modified with French. But her passion for languages has extended beyond the classroom, leading her to Paris on the French foreign study program and to Amman, Jordan, on a transfer term through Middlebury College.

At Dartmouth, Estevez has served as an Arabic tutor and drill instructor, and lived on an Arabic-speaking floor for one term.

Estevez said that the most meaningful experience of her Dartmouth career occurred when she volunteered for the Arab-American Association of New York. Estevez helped migrants find jobs and served as an education and social services provider for Arab Refugees.

“It was incredibly meaningful to leave at 5:00 every day and think, ‘Wow, I helped 10 people today,’” Estevez said.

This past summer, Estevez worked as a research intern at the Washington Institute for Near-East policies, a think tank that researches policy in the Middle East.

Estevez has served as a first-year trip leader twice and as a Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisor. She also has coached two seasons of club soccer in Norwich.

She advises underclassmen to follow their own path at Dartmouth.

“Do things that make you happy, and don’t do things because you think they are the ‘right’ Dartmouth thing to do,” she said.

After graduation, Estevez will spend her summer working for the nonprofit Seeds of Peace, a program that aims to bring students from many different Middle Eastern countries together to overcome differences. Seeds of Peace will first take Estevez to Israel’s West Bank, and she will spend the second half of the summer in Maine, at the camp.

In the fall, Estevez will travel to Cairo, Egypt to work at the American University in Cairo on a year long fellowship.

Malcolm Leverett ’14:South Field, Michigan

An alternative spring break trip to Florida redefined Leverett’s approach to community service. On the trip during his first year at the College, Leverett gained far more than an exposure to the study of documentation and immigration.

From the trip’s two senior leaders, Leverett said, he learned how to approach volunteer work with a sense of empathy and an understanding of each volunteer’s own privilege and reasons for volunteering. Leverett took notes each night of the trip, and a compiled version of his reflections was later published in a book sponsored by the Class of 1964.

Back at Dartmouth, Leverett has been involved with MoneySmart, a Tucker Foundation program that offers financial education to residents of the Upper Valley, and also volunteered with the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth program over his sophomore summer, which empowers promising high school students from underprivileged backgrounds to thrive in high school and college. He also traveled to Honduras his sophomore year on a Dartmouth Global Leadership program trip.

Leverett has worked to enact positive change at Dartmouth through his involvement with the Inter-Community Council and Palaeopitus senior society as well as an internship with Senior Associate Dean of the College Inge-Lise Ameer.

These positions, he said, have allowed him to share his opinions with senior administrators, as well as research ways to tangibly improve Dartmouth.

In his time at Dartmouth, Leverett said that he think the College has made steps in the right direction.

“Of course we still have more progress that needs to made, but I can genuinely say I think they have made progress,” Leverett said.

An economics major and Spanish minor, Leverett studied abroad in Madrid on the Spanish FSP during his junior fall. During another term away from the College, he interned at Post-Newsweek Stations, a subsidiary of the Washington Post, as part of the Minority Interests in Media program through the Emma L. Bowen Foundation.

Leverett has also been very involved in Beta Alpha Omega fraternity and the Afro-American society on campus.

Leverett advises underclassmen to make friendships beyond their defined cultural groups or Greek houses.

“Try new things that get you involved in learning about other cultures and meeting new people,” Leverett said.

After graduation, Leverett will work for the Vanguard Group, an investment management firm located in Pennsylvania. He ultimately plans to complete a joint JD/MBA program and pursue his interest in tax law.

Kaila Pedersen ’14:Mamaroneck, New York

Pedersen’s time spent studying in Kosovo during her freshman summer “shaped the trajectory” of her Dartmouth academic experience.

“For the first time, [I was] in a place where I was always visibly different from everyone around,” Pedersen said. “I wanted to go home where this wasn’t such a big deal anymore, but then [I realized] that this does happen at home.”

Her discomfort at standing out encouraged her to think critically about her own communities, Pedersen said. This in turn encouraged her to approach her “Dartmouth world” in a different light.

At the College, Pedersen has been highly involved with the sustainable living center — where she lived this spring — as well as the Women of Color Collective and the Dartmouth Outing Club’s cabin and trail and mountaineering groups.

Pedersen came to Dartmouth thinking she might major in government and minor in biology, but after taking an international development class, she realized that geography courses addressed more of the topics she wanted to pursue.

“I like that geography incorporated questions about identity, which I found less in the government department,” Pedersen said.

Pedersen has studied geography alongside Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Arabic and government. She completed a senior thesis on the relationship between the European Union and Bosnia and how European media portrays Bosnia to achieve certain political goals.

During her time abroad, Pedersen visited Bosnia. She grew intrigued after by the political situation in the country, she said, and when she selected her own class research topics, she chose to write about constitutional structure or ethnicity in Bosnia.

During her junior spring, Pedersen interned at a non-profit located in the northern part of the country. Conversations with people during her time there brought her to her thesis.

Aside from her off terms, Pedersen attended the French LSA+ in Toulouse and worked for Overland — a summer program and adventure travel company — her junior summer, through which she led a language and hiking trip through the French Alps.

This summer, Pedersen will be a member of the DOC trail crew, where she will work to clear and improve trails and cabins maintained by the DOC.

At the moment, she isn’t positive where she will work in the fall. Pedersen said her career goal is to improve education access in the U.S.

As for her advice for underclassmen, Pedersen said that she “can’t really give advice.”

“I think we all find our way, and everyone is going to find it just as well, if not better, than I did,” she said.

However, Pedersen did say that making time for one-on-one conversations with people has been a rewarding part of her Dartmouth experience.

“They remind me to take a step outside of myself,” Pedersen said. “I like being able to see things in new ways.”