PORTADA
UNIVERSITY OF
NOTRE DAME SOUTH AMERICA
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 03 STUDENT PROFILES
09 ALUMNI PROFILES
NOTRE DAME | SOUTH AMERICA
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STUDENT PROFILES
Claudia Serrano
Enrique Pajuelo
Daniela Lugo
Angélica Franco
Pablo Botta
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STUDENT PROFILES
I chose Notre Dame because of the values that it represents. Notre Dame has this special thing that, as soon as you step on campus, you feel at home. Moreover, Notre Dame’s service-related philosophy, opportunities, and activities really resonated with me.
CLAUDIA SERRANO QUITO , ECUADOR CLASS OF 2018 ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE STUDIES MINOR
I have taken advantage of numerous extracurricular opportunities at Notre Dame. First, I participated in a fundraising event with Hesburgh Heroes, a service club, after which we donated thousands of dollars of proceeds to a nonprofit hospital in Santo Domingo, Ecuador. I also work part-time for the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, monitoring and researching the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the Farc guerilla group. My favorite experiences have been studying abroad. The summer after my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to take classes in Israel for a couple of weeks. It was great to go to the other side of the world and explore a different culture, all with the support of the Notre Dame community. I also enjoyed studying abroad in London for a semester, where I was immersed in the city’s culture and got to travel to many interesting European cities.
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STUDENT PROFILES
I applied to Notre Dame without really knowing anything about the University, besides the fact that its business school was one of the best in the country. However, it only took me one visit to campus to realize it was the place where I belonged and where I wanted to spend the next four years of my life.
ENRIQUE PAJUELO LIMA, PERU CLASS OF 2018 FINANCE AND ECONOMICS
Notre Dame offers a wide range of opportunities and I have done my best to take advantage of them. I am passionate about entrepreneurship and the challenges that come with it, so I participated in two business competitions where I was able to pitch prototypes of two different mobile applications to faculty and alumni. In my junior year, I became the president of the Entrepreneurship Society, with the goal of spreading the entrepreneurial spirit on campus. The summer after my sophomore year, I attended a coding boot camp in South Africa, where I learned different programming languages. Even though this experience was not related to any of my majors, it was my favorite one because it allowed me to learn a set of skills that proved to be useful both in my personal and professional growth. Plus, I got to meet some very interesting people and explore a different continent.
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STUDENT PROFILES
I chose Notre Dame because it demanded that I raise the bar to excellence in all aspects of my life: personally, academically, and professionally. I knew that Notre Dame’s strong sense of community would enable me to learn from many talented, supportive people and grow in many different ways.
ANGÉLICA FRANCO VILLAVICENCIO, COLOMBIA CLASS OF 2020 COMPUTER SCIENCE
Last year I joined the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA), an organization that seeks to connect top Latino students with top firms, where I attended several networking events and participated in a national case competition. I am also part of the Student International Business Council (SIBC), a student-run organization where we work in teams on business cases and then travel to present to partner companies. Lastly, I volunteer at the YMCA every Monday to tutor underprivileged kids in South Bend. One of my favorite experiences at Notre Dame has been participating in the KPMG Case Competition. We competed against other Notre Dame teams in developing a strategy to improve a business and presented our solution to a group of KPMG professionals. We won this competition and had the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas, where we got to meet very talented students from throughout the country, take advantage of career workshops, and network with many professionals willing to help us learn.
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STUDENT PROFILES
I chose Notre Dame because of its commitment to service through interdisciplinary collaboration, which resonated with my goal of working towards better and safer infrastructure. At Notre Dame, I’ve been exposed to a strong culture of innovation for the common good, as well as a community focused on the formation of well-rounded leaders.
DANIELA LUGO QUITO, ECUADOR CLASS OF 2018 CIVIL ENGINEERING
Unique courses, study abroad, and dedicated student organizations have allowed me to start contributing towards real-life issues rather than waiting until graduation. I have been involved with Engineering2Empower, a club that seeks to develop housing solutions in Haiti by combining engineering, international development, and design thinking. In addition, I have served as a catechist at a South Bend parish for the McGrath Institute for Church Life, where I had the opportunity to engage the local Hispanic population through faith. My favorite experience at Notre Dame was being the construction manager for the Notre Dame Students Empowering through Engineering Development (NDSEED) team in 2016. As part of NDSEED, I was involved in the designing, planning, and construction of a footbridge to connect people affected by seasonal flooding in rural Nicaragua. By living, working, and sharing with this community for eight weeks, I was able to use my skills as a Spanish-speaking civil engineer, and experience the potential for improvement that results from humancentered design.
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STUDENT PROFILES
I chose Notre Dame because it is one of the few universities that excels in the areas I feel most passionate about: academics and school spirit. The quality of the undergraduate education is unparalleled; professors at Notre Dame are genuinely concerned about your education and your future success. Furthermore, the strong school spirt creates a very close and distinctive community for students and alumni alike.
PABLO BOTTA BOGOTĂ , COLOMBIA CLASS OF 2019 FINANCE AND ECONOMICS
I have been involved in academic clubs such as the Investment Club and Economics Club, where we discuss trends and analyze cases with other students. I have also participated in multiple community service organizations devoted to helping low-income families in the South Bend community. For example, I volunteered at the Robinson Community Center, where I tutored underprivileged kids on a variety of subjects. My favorite experience at Notre Dame has been the football games. At Notre Dame, football is a lot more than a sport; it is a campus-wide celebration of our school’s traditions and strong community values. The school spirt at our football games is unmatched by any other university, and the community component is especially present immediately after the games, when the entire student section embraces each other and sings the alma mater together with the team.
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ALUMNI PROFILES
GABRIEL PRADO
DANIEL HIDALGO
LUCÍA FERNÁNDEZ
CAMILA ESCALLÓN
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GABRIEL PRADO CLASS OF 2016 FINANCE AND PEACE STUDIES MINOR
ALUMNI PROFILES
SANTIAGO, CHILE
WORK EXPERIENCE
FAVORITE THING ABOUT NOTRE DAME
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND INTERNSHIPS
HOW NOTRE DAME CHANGED ME
I am currently working in Chicago as a Consultant with Deloitte, within the Valuation and Modeling group. In my role, I work with a variety of clients from industries such as healthcare, private equity and technology, and I help them build financial models and projections to navigate challenging scenarios such as acquisitions or tax reform. Besides working at Deloitte, I tutor refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo during the weekends and help them adjust to life in the U.S. Furthermore, I am involved with Deloitte’s campus recruiting at Notre Dame, DePaul University, and the University of Illinois.
During my time at Notre Dame, I was involved in clubs such as Bengal Bouts and the Toastmasters public speaking club. I spent a summer doing an international service learning program in Jinja, Uganda, where I taught fifth-grade English and math and coordinated soccer practices after school. I also participated in the Center for Social Concerns’ microfinance internship, where I was placed with World Business Chicago to help them build financial models to allocate loans for small and medium businesses in the city. Furthermore, I was a research assistant for professors in the Institute for Latino Studies and the sociology department.
My favorite thing about Notre Dame was by far the Center for Social Concerns because it helped shape me as a person and framed my understanding of where I should focus my life’s efforts. Through the CSC, I was able to participate in several activities and seminars, such as spending a summer teaching English and math in the outskirts of Jinja, Uganda, taking the “Inside Out: Prison Writing” class at the Westville Correctional Facility, and attending countless lectures on topics ranging from environmental policy to community organizing and activism.
Notre Dame taught me how to appreciate learning and to solve problems creatively, but most importantly, it taught me how to maintain an attitude of curiosity and excitement toward life. As I enroll in graduate school in public policy next year and pursue a new career path, I will always maintain the passion for learning Notre Dame instilled in me and I will fondly remember my alma mater for the rest of my life.
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DANIEL HIDALGO CLASS OF 2017 CIVIL ENGINEERING AND ECONOMICS
ALUMNI PROFILES
QUITO, ECUADOR
WORK EXPERIENCE
FAVORITE THING ABOUT NOTRE DAME
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND INTERNSHIPS
HOW NOTRE DAME CHANGED ME
I am currently part of a two-year business rotational program at Microsoft called Accelerated Connections and Experiences. As part of my first rotation, I am in the Corporate Strategy division, focused on business planning for Office 365 customers. Outside of work, I am part of the Microsoft soccer league, where we play twice per week in a season-long tournament.
My undergraduate years can be described as a time of discovery. From figuring out what I wanted to major in, to finding an extracurricular activity I was passionate about, those were my years to explore. During my time at Notre Dame, I studied abroad in Australia, participated in student government, captained the club tennis team, led a team in the Student International Business Council (SIBC), and helped run social impact programs such as Engineering to Empower. I interned with Microsoft the summer before my senior year. My internship experience helped me develop an even greater interest in the technology sector and made me realize that this is where I wanted to be post-graduation.
Notre Dame stands for everything I value in life. Whenever someone asks me why I chose Notre Dame, I tell them it comes down to three things. Outstanding academics, great athletics, and a deep sense of purpose. Notre Dame’s community is not only incredibly smart and talented, but is always willing to help others out. This is something you don’t find in many other places.
Notre Dame gave me the platform to explore. Coming out of high school, I was a curious kid who came in as an undecided major, and Notre Dame gave me the resources to explore multiple disciplines. It instilled in me the confidence to fail fast and learn to move forward.
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LUCĂ?A FERNĂ NDEZ CLASS OF 2014
ARCHITECTURE MAJOR AND ITALIAN MINOR
ALUMNI PROFILES
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
WORK EXPERIENCE
After graduating from Notre Dame, I worked at Konstant Architecture, a high-end residential firm in Chicago, where I was able to apply the traditional architecture concepts I had learned at Notre Dame. After two years, I moved to New York and started working at Hart Howerton, an interdisciplinary firm of planners, architects, landscape architects, and interior designers, with a portfolio ranging from hospitality to highend residential projects. The collaborative nature of Hart Howerton has allowed me to be part of a variety of teams, something I particularly enjoy as it is similar to my experience studying architecture at Notre Dame.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND INTERNSHIPS While at Notre Dame, I was involved in the Student Association for Women in Architecture and was part of the organizing committee for the Symposium to celebrate 40 years of Women in Architecture at Notre Dame.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT NOTRE DAME
My favorite thing about Notre Dame is the sense of community, which expands beyond the classroom and the residence hall. As a student, I experienced this in every Mass, every dining hall lunch, every long night in studio, and every football game! Now, as an alumna, I know that the Notre Dame community and network have no borders, and wherever you go, your home will always be under the Dome!
HOW NOTRE DAME CHANGED ME
Not only did Notre Dame give me a well-rounded education, but it also gave me the opportunity to grow spiritually and to discover passions that I had not yet discovered. Standing true to its mission, Notre Dame helped me nurture my mind, body, and spirit!
During my summers, I interned with a residential architect in my hometown as well as in a large commercial firm in Chicago. My contrasting internships helped me realize what I would be looking for post-graduation. After my third year, I worked as a teaching assistant for the ND Architecture Summer Program, Career Discovery for High Schoolers. This was a very special opportunity, having participated in the program myself.
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CAMILA ESCALLÓN CLASS OF 2009 POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ART HISTORY
ALUMNI PROFILES
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
WORK EXPERIENCE
When I returned to Colombia, I joined the National Oil Palm Association (Fedepalma), where I had an impact in areas of the country with the most need, getting my initial experience as a public policy professional. I then joined Johnson & Johnson as a Communications specialist for their Medical Devices business. Today, I am part of the Public Policy team at Uber, where I advocate for ridesharing with policymakers, authorities, and NGOs. I am also leading the Women of Uber chapter for Central and South America, looking to empower women both within the company and in the cities where we operate.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND INTERNSHIPS I had several internship opportunities during the summer in my time at Notre Dame. I joined a Hispanic marketing agency in Chicago called the San José Group, a digital marketing agency in New York, and the Corporate Social Responsibility team at Cummins. During the school year, I worked at the Snite Museum of Art, studying its collections and giving tours in Spanish.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT NOTRE DAME
People’s warmth is my favorite thing about the Notre Dame community. This is reflected in the friends I made, the teachers that taught me, and the alumni I have met after graduation. Everyone is willing to help and has made me feel like family. The campus is also incredible. Being able to spend five years in one of the most beautiful places I have seen is a privilege.
HOW NOTRE DAME CHANGED ME
Notre Dame not only gave me the best education, but also made me a good person. When choosing a job, I prioritize the potential to have a positive effect in the world, and that is greatly influenced by my alma mater. We were taught about the importance of being catalysts of change in everything we do.
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