Julia Godinez, ’17, is a junior Economics and History major at Mount Holyoke. She’s also single, a CA on the fourth floor of Buckland and treasurer for the Outing Club. For this interview she surprised me by preparing tea and an assortment of organic cookies. In addition to exhibiting genuine kindness and giving, she’s also believes in being authentic to herself. For this reason, she sat down with us as this week’s Campus Cutie to discuss her adventures, interests, idols, and life philosophy. So here is some information to help you get to know Julia better.
Thing to know #1: She tells people she’s named after Julia Child when she’s actually named after Julia Roberts.
Julia explained to me, “I’m kinda obsessed with Julia Child. Because as much little direction I feel I have in life, I feel like she had less direction… She didn’t start her career until she was forty and I think that really cool. [Plus] she entered a male dominated field and she was doing what we would considerate a feminine housework task, but making it elite as well as something that was accessible to everyone.”
Thing to know #2: She hikes, camps, dives, kayaks, rides horses, etc.
All over Julia’s wall were pictures of places she had visited. Over the summer, she went on a hundred foot dive. She had lots of fun but it was also terrifying, because the measurements on her air tank were in the metric system and she was used to the standard system. “I used up my air tank faster than I normally would,” she told me. To top it all off, the dive was in spanish and she didn’t know the spanish diving terminology. Luckily, she arrived safely on land. “The [dive shop owner] was like, ‘so you’re going to go diving again now right?’ and I was just happy I didn’t get the bends; I was just happy that I was alive,” she told me.
Thing to know #3: She had an internship on Easter Island conducting a non-invasive archaeological survey.
“I was working with local high school students and the need that was being addressed was they’re on Chile’s education system, so none of their classes pertain to their own island. So that was the program I was apart of, an educational program to learn about their own island,” she said while pouring the tea, “It didn’t align to much with my major or anything… but you don’t need anything to align to your major. You gotta get creative!”
Thing to know #4: What is Julia’s life manifesto:
“The starting would be like, ‘Don’t [stress over] what anyone thinks about you,’ and then it would lead off of with how you should do your best to always make yourself happy, but make sure you’re not hurting anyone doing it. You’re also trying to make the world a better place,” she put her hand out to explain,” but in micro-ways, like by making people smile, or making people’s days better. ‘Cause if everyone tried to do that I don’t think we’d have many problems.”
So that’s a bit about Julia. I hope you enjoyed learning about her likes, dislikes, stories, and philosophies as much as I did. Oh- and I forgot.
Thing to know #5: Nancy Botwin is her soul mate.
Photo Credit for Julia Child photo: “Julia Child at KUHT” by KUHT – http://digital.lib.uh.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p15195coll38&CISOPTR=262. Licensed under CC0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Julia_Child_at_KUHT.jpg#/media/File:Julia_Child_at_KUHT.jpg
Photo Credit for Mary-Louise Parker: Gage Skidmore