Meet Rebekah Chloe Heath, Campus Celebrity Extraordinaire. Actually, she just goes by Bekah, but occasionally responds to Burkah or BurkahDurka. She didn’t even realize she had enough star power to be a celeb.
So let us introduce you to Bekah. For starters, she’s a junior in CAS studying Environmental Analysis and Policy with pre-law and a minor in Arabic, she cries tears of happiness when she sees sloths, she sings all the time and she prefers winter over summer because of the snow. It’s also noteworthy to mention her love of pasta and baby corn, the color lilac, the environment, her younger sister and the Bruins. She just returned from the BU study abroad program in London and is hitting the ground running back here in Boston.
When she begins to describe her London adventure, she exhales and an expression of happy nostalgia comes over her gray-blue eyes. To her, London was the dream. It was amazing because she was able to find the independence she was searching for and also because she did not go a day without having the biggest smile on her face. London was a place where she could learn and explore, and ultimately get to know herself. She loved that she was able to focus on herself and learn that her passions lie in her course of study, travel, meeting new people and stepping out of her comfort zone.
When I asked her what was one of the wildest things she did in London outside of her comfort zone, she giggled and told me how she made tea for Hugh Grant one day at her internship. When I asked for something wilder, she told me about how one night she and her friends were exploring the streets of Copenhagen when some people on a rooftop called down to the girls and told them to come up to the roof. Bekah and her friends raced upward and were greeted by some friendly and spunky Danish people and also by a beautiful view of the city.
At the conclusion of the reflection, she says London is the best city ever…no offense to Boston.
Even though London was her dream and she has big goals to return for grad school, Bekah is pumped to be back in Boston. She just started a new club at BU called She’s the First. It’s an organization that works toward giving young women from low-income communities an opportunity they haven’t been able to access before: higher education. It gives these bright girls a chance to learn, grow and go beyond the boundaries of what their families had been restricted to in the past. Bekah’s goals for the She’s the First BU chapter are to educate the Boston community on the cause and to raise money for the cause itself. Bekah also plans to use the club as a forum to promote women’s right to education and show respect for the talents and ingenuity women have. She’s still looking for new members and encourages everyone to reach out and join her in this initiative.
If you haven’t realized this about Bekah yet, she’s a celebrity because she has a passion for meeting and getting to know others. When she arrived at BU freshman year, she had come from a tiny all-girls school, and the first thing she wanted to do was make as many friends as she could who would inspire her to think outside of the box she had been living in for 18 years. She loves building relationships with others by seeing new faces and learning new things. Hearing someone’s story is what makes her happy. This is something she’s hoping to accomplish through She’s the First, but is also something she’s already accomplished through her involvement in the Community Service Center, Omega Phi Alpha National Service Sorority, BU Hillel, and a cappella.
When she’s not at work at the Center for Career Development/Educational Resource Center, you can spot her in the little paved area near the BU beach perched on a bench (during warm weather) or in the little reading nook on the fifth floor of the Yawkey Center for Student Services where you can see all of Boston. She explains it’s the best view on campus for sure.
Can’t get enough Bekah? Follow her on Instagram because she loves taking photographs, especially when enthusiastic strangers hop in her pictures: @rebekahheath.