BY LINDA FORMICHELLI PHOTOS BY DAVIES PHOTOGRAPHY
From Dream to Doctor Cadet’s father worked at Manhattan Mini Storage, and her family lived in the supervisor’s apartment. “I remember going on rounds with him, and attending a very cute Catholic school near Columbia,” she says. Cadet grew up telling herself she was going to attend Columbia, oblivious to any other university—and to how challenging it is to be accepted at Columbia, much less to succeed as a student there. Bergen County, New Jersey, was the family’s next stop, where Cadet spent her childhood—except for the summers in the Dominican Republic, where she went to summer camp and visited the beach with her grandmother. “That’s how I maintained the culture growing up, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had that much exposure to the Dominican Republic,” Cadet explains. “It’s part of the reason I feel so tied to the country.” Math, science, and reading were Cadet’s favorite subjects in school. She chose to major in English at Georgetown, then spent a year teaching English in Malaysia. With this background—not to mention being bilingual and an accomplished athlete—Cadet could have ended up anywhere. Professional sports, teaching, engineering, and writing were just a few of the options open to her. But during her first month in Malaysia, Cadet grew close with a group of fellow teachers who all happened to be in medical school. “It was a sign,” she says. “I fly all the way across the world, I’m not sure about what I’m supposed to do with my life, and here I am making friends with these medical students— and I’m so excited about what they’re doing.” So Cadet applied to medical school from Malaysia. She had only one week during a Thanksgiving visit to the U.S. to attend college interviews, which meant her list was limited to those that could accommodate her timing. The med school she ended up at? Columbia, of course.
Then how will your student engage in deeper academic inquiry, collaborate with other students or advocate for themselves with the teacher?
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