A replica of a Golden Snitch sits on a tall shelf near her window that overlooks Beeler Street. Posters of plays and music and movies plaster her white walls: Fight Club, Broken Bells, The Beatles, The Black Keys and Scotch’n’Soda theater productions from the past two years. Maddy Sverdlove sits on the edge of her bed wearing dark gray jeans and a gray striped shirt, almost blending in with her gray comforter. But since coming to CMU two years ago, Sverdlove has done just the opposite of “blending in.”
Maddy Sverdlove is a junior Chemistry and Psychology double major. Hailing from Princeton, New Jersey, Sverdlove is quite a ways from home. When asked, “Why CMU?” Sverdlove says, “To be perfectly honest it was the best school I got into. That and I didn’t like the fact that NYU didn’t have a campus. I wanted stereotypical green lawns between buildings.” After receiving her “FAT Letter” of acceptance and graduating high school, this New Jersyian (who dabbles in singing, violin and French) left her cat “Smut” behind, packed up her Navaho-print blanket and came out to Pittsburgh, not sure of what to expect, but eager to find out.
When she’s not in the UC poolroom doing homework with friends, you can find Sverdlove in the UC “dungeon.” Which is actually much more innocent than it sounds. The dungeon, in the basement of the UC, is the charming name for the room where all of the Scotch’n’Soda theater props are stored. Here, Sverdlove is the keeper of keys, in charge of the maintenance and organization of the props. Last year, not only did Sverdlove serve on the theater group’s board of directors, but she also had the role of “master carpenter” for the student-written play “Duplex” and was the “tech director” for “Batboy: A Musical” and “The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee.”
No doubt that this 20-year-old lady knows her way around a circ saw (a feat that most of our CMU men can’t boast). That being said, in the past couple of years, her plate of responsibility has been heaping and heavy. So, keeping in mind the importance of her mental health, Sverdlove decided to take on “less” this year and focus on her studies. This year, along with her duties in the dungeon, Sverdlove is involved with the Psi Chi Honor Society in psychology and is involved in chemistry research that attempts to “make cement better by being able to use less water but have it flow just as well,” (this was her dumbed-down description of the research after she lost me with “polymer product” and “lignin”).
“You’re going to want to get involved with a lot of things. And you’re going to have a lot of work. But you have to realize that you are your first priority and that even if you feel bad letting down someone in an organization, that doesn’t matter as much as your own sanity.”
Most people find it hard to balance academics and friends. “Most people” does not include Sverdlove. A close friend of Sverdlove’s, June Hammer Wallitzer, can attest to that:
“Maddy and I have been friends since freshman year, so we have experienced most of college together. She has been there for the good times and the bad. I value the fact that I have a friend who I have and will share my college experience with.”
Developing friendships that will last longer than the four years of college and keeping her priorities in line has helped Maddy Sverdlove overcome the challenges one faces on the daily at Carnegie Mellon. When prompted to reveal her plans post-college, she states:
“I kind of assume I’m going to grad school. But I want to get a taste of the other direction that I could go in and maybe work for a company in a research and development type department for consumers.”
But for now, Sverdlove would like to simply step away from her work for a day and go somewhere remote and pleasant to maybe blend in with her surroundings for a bit and enjoy the quiet.