This week’s precious gems features a hard-working Spanish
major by the name of Trisha Mandrich. Trisha is a junior from Shady Side, Maryland, where she graduated
from Southern High School. She left a piece of her heart in Spain while
studying abroad last semester and traveling across Europe. This semester, she
is back in UMD
Making her way downtown, through the streets of Spain and
exploring the gorgeous architecture, she learned to look at life through a
different perspective. She appreciated the authenticity of the language, the
food, and the lifestyle. She studied business, literature, history, culture, and
art as part of her study abroad program. She claims that truly immersing
herself into a different culture has enriched her mind and made her a better
Spanish scholar. It was quite the life-changing experience for her because she
came back with a new goal in her mind: to teach.
Initially, she
wanted to be a physician’s assistant, but now she wants to take her passion for
Spanish and spread the love by teaching the language. In the past, she has been
a camp counselor who taught Spanish to children with no Spanish backgrounds and
it was interesting for her to see how children innately have the interest to
communicate in a different language. She values how much quicker children are able
to adapt to and develop a penchant for a new language.
In her free time,
she loves cooking and is an avid explorer of vegetarian recipes. She is part of
VegTerps, Terps for Bernie, intramural soccer, and flag football teams. In
addition, to satisfy her curious, art-loving self, she likes to hike and
travel, so she can see how beautiful the world is.
Her team, team DIRE, is exploring the dark internet and how
it has created a cohesive culture and community. The team has special interests
in how the dark internet affects the economic exchange and the use of bitcoin. So
far, they have acquired substantial research and have talked to people in the
dark internet. As Team DIRE’s liaison,
Trisha is in charge of organization of meetings and is head of communications.
You could say she is the glue that holds the team together. Recently, they have
started fundraising to buy bitcoin to engage in purchasing in the dark internet
to compare it to commercial outlets, such as amazon. Trisha likes that her team is discovering new
knowledge all the time and is not repeating any experiments. They hope to be
able to reduce the stigma attached with dark Internet.
In the future, Trisha sees herself working with children and
with language, and cooking some awesome meals for her loved ones. If you ever
need a friend to remind you how beautiful the world is and to teach you some
Spanish, count on Trisha!
-06 November, 2015 - Nazifa Chowdhury
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