I am from Mexico City. I wanted to study abroad to gain more world perspective. I found out about UMass looking for rowing programs, and universities that offered food science. I think food science is a fascinating study, and not a lot of people know about it. With a raising number of overweight people, and still the high number of people who are starving, I think we have a very challenging future with limited resources. As part of the Food Science Club,I joined a part of the development team. And last summer, we were able to compete at the Institute of Food Technology's annual meeting in Chicago. We developed a protein-based food product to help mitigate under nourished kids in Zambia. Being part of the crew team is like having a big family on campus. Especially for me being an international student, I found a lot of support from my teammates. More than anything, UMass education to me means personal growth. If you're going to university, you think you're going to go and study, be in your classrooms all the time. And this is not the case at UMass. You can do so many things, there's something going on every day. And for me, that's what really UMass means to me. It's everything that I've learned outside the classroom. My name is Estefanía Malvido, I'm Class of 2016. I stand for interdisciplinary education, and I stand for UMass.