Class Members

Hello Everyone! My name is Sierra Francis, I am 25 years old and a mom to the most the amazing and sweet 5 year old. I am a psychology major here at BMCC and I will be graduating at the end of this semester and transferring to John Jay College to pursue a bachelors in Forensic Psychology and from there I am off to law school. My son is my driving force and the reason for pursuing higher education, I want to give him the life he deserving and I can enjoy. Wishing everyone an amazing and productive semester!

Hi, my name is Grace Valette and I’m from Colorado. I moved to NYC three years ago for modeling and I’m currently working to get my nutrition degree!

I’m Tuvi Voorhees.  I’m an associate professor in the department of Academic Literacy and Linguistics.  I’m a linguist by training, although I have experience teaching in several disciplines.  I have published mainly in second language reading and general pedagogy, but I’m beginning a project on language ideology.  This is one of my favorite courses to teach and I hope you learn a lot from it!

Hello everyone, my name is Daniela Moreno and I am 24 years old. I am a science engineering student, soon to graduate!. I am Colombian, I arrived in New York 5 years ago, pursuing new opportunities and I feel happy and proud for what I have achieved so far on my own. My biggest dream and professional goal is to graduate as a civil engineer, so I’m working towards it. In my time away from College responsibilities I am a full time babysitter, I love my job and enjoy what I do as it gives me the ease of studying from home at the same time. Not being from this country, I am always very curious to know about its history and delve deeper into the country’s culture, so this class seemed like the best option to learn more!

Hi everyone, my name is Chayanne! I am 22 years old, a mom to my four-year-old daughter and a wife. I work for a nonprofit organization called El Puente. El Puente is a community human rights institution that promotes leadership for peace and justice through the engagement of members (youth and adult). I started working in January 2023, and I have risen from receptionist to hopefully soon administrative assistant. Working here has opened my eyes to a future career in HR management. I am almost graduating from BMCC (after this semester I have one more class that I need to take). I am thinking of going to either John Jay for public administration or to Baruch for HR management. My family and I are from Puerto Rico, and my family has lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since before the 70s! I strive to be a better person every single day–and more recently I have devoted my time to bettering myself mentally, and physically. Going to school full time and working part time while also being a full-time mom has been overwhelming yet rewarding. I believe that part of my growth has come from the mix of those three things. I struggled a lot as a kid, going through rough family patches, to being bullied at school, almost failing freshman year in high school. I’d like to say that I’ve really made a way for myself and while there felt like there was this huge force against me, I feel like I became a person that I am most proud of. I’ve learned to give grace to myself. I’ve learned recently that everyone’s timeline looks a lot different! I used to beat myself up about dropping out of college when I was 18 (because I became pregnant and had very little support). Once my daughter was able to go to HeadStart, I immediately went searching for job and ultimately that landed me on also trying to come back to school– which I did, last fall! This has been a great journey of self-exploration and of learning. I look forward to being an active participant in this class!