![\"Alumn](\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/603\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-04-at-4.13.06\u202fPM-772x1024.png\")
<\/figure>What does life after Mac look like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002I\u2019m currently in my fifth year of grad school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I\u2019m in the PhD program in Classical Philology, and I\u2019ll be working on my prospectus for my dissertation by the spring 2026 semester. My research focuses on ancient perceptions of the afterlife, particularly looking at variations and receptions of the Hades and Persephone myth. I\u2019ve also been teaching a class on ancient Greek prose this semester, where we\u2019ve been reading Lucian\u2019s Dialogues of the Dead<\/em>. Outside of my day-to-day as a grad student, I spend my time crafting (crocheting and diamond painting), reading for fun (most recently The Naturals<\/em> by Jennifer Lynn Barnes), and listening to music and podcasts (mainly The Adventure Zone <\/em>and Girls Who Don\u2019t DnD<\/em>).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n What lessons from professors or fellow students are you holding onto in your post-grad life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002The lesson I always remember from various professors at Macalester is to make sure you ask for help when you need it. I keep it in mind for myself, and I also have passed this advice on to my students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there any extracurriculars, classes, internships, or other experiences that have been particularly informative for work or life after graduation, and if so, how have they helped?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002My time as a student worker at the KAIGC at Macalester provided me with a lot of skills that I have used in my time in grad school, specifically my work helping with International Roundtable (IRT) that helped me have confidence in helping to organize a workshop on Classical Reception in Spring 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002I also am very thankful for my time as Professor Geng\u2019s research assistant, as an English Department student worker, and as a Copy Editor for The Mac Weekly <\/em>because each of those experiences together prepared me well for further copyediting work as a grad student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you could give one piece of advice to yourself when you were a Mac student, what would you say?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002If I could give a piece of advice to myself back when I was a Mac student, I would tell myself to enjoy taking the various creative writing classes, since grad school will greatly limit how much time you have to work on your creative writing projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there anything exciting on the horizon for you that you’d like to highlight?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002I\u2019m really excited to start working on my dissertation prospectus soon so that I can focus in on my own research. It will include me taking up a couple papers I worked on previously on classical reception theory and Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you miss about Macalester?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002The free coffee different places on campus (English Department & the KAIGC), and my favorite study spot up on Old Main 3 by the Classics department faculty offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there anything else you’d like to add?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002If you\u2019re going on to grad school and you see an interesting class outside of your home department, take it! Last year, I took a class on Milton in the English Department, and it is one of my favorite classes I\u2019ve taken as a grad student.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Callisto Martinez ’26 The Words reached out to Classical Mediterranean and Middle East studies and English double major and political science minor Amy Vandervelde \u201921 for a check-in this month. Vandervelde, who also served as and The Words\u2019 Senior Newsletter Editor during her time at Mac, generously shared her insights on some valuable experiences […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1049,"featured_media":0,"parent":11307,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11323","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1049"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11323"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11335,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11323\/revisions\/11335"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}