Name: Maria Clara Valle
Age: 21
Major: Public Relations
Year: Senior (Class of 2018)
Hometown: Bragança Paulista
Sign: Aries
Born in Bragança Paulista, a city two hours away from São Paulo capital, Maria Clara Valle is a senior at Cásper Líbero College, where she studies Public Relations. Since a kid, she always dreamed about traveling the world, meeting new people and speaking a new language. Besides working, playing sports and helping her mom at her company, Maria Clara is also the director of planning and products at the college’s athletics.
Her first experience abroad was back in 2012, when she did an exchange program. She always liked the idea of blending with other people, so going to the United States would be perfect. For the program, her mom wanted her to stay for a year, but she was scared and decided to stay for 6 months. At the end of the program, she regretted: “I should have stayed longer”, laughs.
She lived in Elizabeth, a small city with a thousand citizens in the state of West Virginia. Her host family was a bit conservative, so it was a little bit hard in the beginning. However, after all they got along just fine. There she met great people and even after 6 years, she is still in touch with her best friends.
When college time arrived, she had to choose a major. Since her mom has her own event planning company and Maria Clara always loved the area, she decided to take her mom’s steps and apply for Public Relations. “When I found out about Cásper, I didn’t want only to study PR, but I wanted to study PR at Cásper”, says.
But the problem was that she lived in the countryside, so she had to move out from home and go on an adventure in the big concrete city of São Paulo. “Before coming to SP I thought that living in a big city would be great, I would have many things to do, I’d be safe and everything would be great, just like a dream”, says. Her ideas were too ambitious thought. At the beginning, she had to live with an old lady, then she moved to a place where she shared the house with 15 other people and they had one single bathroom, then she got robbed in her own place and she couldn’t believe things were going that way. “It was really bad”, says.
Four houses later, now she lives in an apartment with friends. “It’s great. Living by yourself can be hard but it gives you a lot of independence. You can do what you want, whenever you want”, says.
Besides traveling, her other hobbies involve sports. She has played every single sport you might think, from soccer to horse riding and hockey. Until last year, she was part of the rugby team. “Now that I’m not playing I feel bad that I’m not exercising”. But sports go beyond that in Maria Clara’s life. Since 2016, she is part of the college’s athletics and in 2018 she is working as the director of planning and products. “I love being part of this family. You learn everyday. Actually, I learn more about events there than at my internship”, jokes.