Hi! I’m Laura and I’m so excited to join the Baldwin community. I was born in Georgia, spent much of my life in the Bay Area of California, lived in London during high school, and am (at least momentarily) based in New Jersey. One day in the (hopefully) near future, I will update this bio with more solidified career ambitions, but at the moment, I am drawn to many different paths. I look forward to the day I can more fully describe my future plans, but here I will try to offer an exploration of some of my various intrigues and passions.
Perhaps I should start by examining how I spend my time. The margins of my days are filled filling paper with pen, oftentimes spontaneously, between zoom appointments and trips to the library. One would be equally likely to find me hunched over a journal or laptop at 4 am or 4 pm as some sentence, phrase, or word catalyses what may be minutes or hours spent writing,writing, writing. Poetry, songs, and short stories stream into the corners of notebooks and tumble down hundreds of pages of iPhone notes as I go about my day. One of my responses to a Baldwin application prompt was even in the form of a free-verse poem.
The time surrounding the hours I spend writing for my own enjoyment are often spent with friends (extroverts write poetry too!) or taking notes on biology lectures I’m no longer reticent to admit I enjoy. The walk to the science lab is often more of a gallop or at least a cavort than a traipse, and I would just as gladly spend my time reading about obscure diseases as I would explaining the newest linguistic studies to friends. Biology, chemistry, linguistics, yoga, history, writing, reading, perambulating over fall leaves on the trail, playing and writing and listening to music ... I am passionate about more things than I am not, and while this makes me extremely indecisive about what I want to “do” with my life, I also live life eagerly and excitedly.
What I know now is that I want to help people somehow, whether that be in a lab coat or court robes, through the keys of a piano or the halls of a school, or, I hope, some combination of the aforementioned settings and raiment. I am also certain that the womxn of the Baldwin program will be a loving, supportive family which will push me personally and professionally, both at and beyond Duke. For now, you can find me: researching privacy policy with regards to COVID-19 contact tracing through Bass Connections, running an editing business, serving as Vice President of the Pre-Pharmacy Union and First-Year Representative of Bench & Bar (the dichotomy, I know), writing for The Standard and The Fluke and Department Of, editing Her Campus articles, creating social media content for Rotaract, working with the Human Rights Center on the Student Advisory Board, arguing with friends over the correct spelling of “colour” or “organised,” and wondering how I’ll react when I read this in four or five years’ time (probably by laughing).