A few weeks ago, the Her Campus staff writers gathered in our usual meeting spot to catch up on business as usual. When one of our editors said she had a surprise for us, I figured it would involve candy, stickers, or some other little joy to brighten up that chilly Monday evening. But, what I got instead was something I never would have expected: a new friend.
We were all told to turn to someone sitting near us and ask each other a few ice-breaker questions. After a couple minutes of chatting, our editors announced that the person we just got to know a little better would be the subject of our next profile. Surprise!
That day I was lucky enough to pair up with Emilee Martichenko. Emilee is majoring in Latin American Studies and minoring in Comparative Literature. She’s technically a junior, but since she is graduating early, she will be walking with the class of 2019 as a 20-year-old! Emilee transferred sophomore year to Boston University from Emerson College. She loves theater, reading, finding cute new coffee shops, and animals of all kinds (but especially her dog and her horse).
Emilee has loved her time at BU and is feeling bittersweet about saying goodbye. These past three years she has built up a strong network of friends, joined Stage Troupe (the oldest and largest stage troupe at BU for non-theater majors), and spent some time getting to know the city’s Latin American food scene (side note: her favorite spot for Puerto Rican food is Vejigantes).
The two of us recently reunited for this interview, and we ended up sitting at the GSU for a while to talk about all things school, travel, food, and life in general. Pull up a seat, and join our conversation.
Emma Kopelowicz: Let’s get right to it. What was it like transferring to BU after freshman year? Did you hit the ground running or did you feel like you had to start all over?
Emilee Martichenko: I had lived in Boston for a year already so I knew the area. I already had friends from Emerson so I kinda had a support system already in place, despite the fact that I was at a new university. The first semester was very much me just kind of finding my way around, getting used to campus, figuring out where I liked to eat the most, trying to meet new people, trying to get into the flow of new classes, a new major, new everything, but it was good. I was very much happy in my decision to come [to BU]. The second semester was when I hit the ground running. I joined Stage Troupe, I started writing for Her Campus, [and] I made some closer friendships. … By second semester, I felt like I made the shift from a transfer student to just “full-time, I’m a BU student!”
EK: Why did you choose your major and minor? Do you try to blend the two subjects?
EM: When I went to Emerson for my freshman year I had very little idea of what I wanted to do. I was always good at Spanish in high school and liked it. When I went to Emerson and realized they didn’t even offer it I was like, “I think this is what I want to do” now that I don’t have it in my life.
Second semester freshman year, I took a Spanish class at Suffolk University just to kind of keep up my reading and writing and what little talking skills I had. I studied abroad with Emerson the summer after my freshman year. I went to Medellín, Colombia for five weeks. That was when I was like, “yup, I wanna do this forever.” I had already decided to transfer to BU for Latin American Studies by then, so that just solidified my decision. I opted for Latin American Studies instead of a pure Spanish major because … when I was in college I realized that I had very little understanding of Latin American history, politics, [and] current affairs. I was just studying the language, and I really wanted a holistic understanding in order to build a career off of that. As for the minor, I love to read and write … and when I came to BU I was doing Spanish and I was taking these really interesting IR classes, but I [wasn’t] writing. I went to the major and minor fair, and I was like, “comparative literature sounds cool because I can just read books from all over the world and compare them!”
EK: What are your plans for the future in terms of getting a job with your degree?
EM: I don’t have set plans yet. I very much would like to travel after graduation. I don’t know where and I don’t know when. My plan is to travel and hopefully work somewhere abroad, whether it’s teaching English or just getting me a job that allows me to have a home base but also travel around wherever I am. I want to go to grad school 100%. … I think I would like to study International Relations/Global Affairs/something along the lines of that. I ultimately want to do some form of international work.
EK: Clearly, you have more than one passion since you’re a writer for Her Campus. Why did you decide to join this community? What do you like to write about?
EM: My first semester at BU, I was not really writing enough and I did not want to lose that ability, so I looked around on BU’s website and I found out about Her Campus. I loved the idea of joining a community of other really strong, ambitious, like-minded women, who I could surround myself with and writing on top of that. I tend to write arbitrarily whatever’s on my mind that week. I write op-eds and I like to cover a variety of topics. I would say the things I most often write about are books and TV shows. Books because I love them and … I usually have something I feel like I can talk about and that I’m very knowledgeable about. It’s not just me blabbering. It’s something that I personally am passionate about, but also I might be able to share with the world and encourage other people to read these books.
EK: What’s your favorite article you’ve ever written?
EM: One of my favorite pieces was when I wrote about How I Met Your Mother because everyone I talked to who had seen that show said, “I hate the ending, I hate the ending, I hate the ending,” to a point where it became this stigma of how HIMYM has the worst ending. Then I finally finished the show and was like, “wow, I love the ending and I’m going to tell the world why!”
(Click here to read the article and see if you agree)
EK: And now I have to ask the most important question of all since you’ve clearly caught the travel bug: which Spanish-speaking country is at the top of your travel bucket list?
EM: I really do want to go to Spain. I want to go to Spain really badly. Everybody who’s been just tells me, Emilee, you’re going to go and never come back. I wanna visit and I wanna experience it and eat the food and just check everything off the list. I’m a Latin American studies major though, so there are a ton of places in Latin America I want to go to. At the top of the list … I really wanna see Chile. I can’t tell you specifically why, but I’ve seen pictures of the scenery and it just seems so beautiful.
To put it simply, Emilee is an absolute queen (or should I say reina). She’s hard-working, driven, and so passionate about what she studies, which as an underclasswoman, I find so inspiring. While learning about all of the amazing things Emilee has done these past three years at BU, I find myself in awe of her ability to balance all of the interesting subjects and extracurriculars she does. Plus, she’s graduating early!! How did she do it? (AP and transfer credits, if you really wanted to know) All jokes aside, Emilee is a sweet soul, an incredible role model, and the best surprise I could have asked for!
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