Beginning of the TRIP! by Mariacristina Calcagno

4/6/2024

Hello everybody! My name is Mariacristina; I’m a junior at Masterman High School in Philadelphia. I could not be more excited to start my journey with TRIP this semester! I joined TRIP because of my rapidly growing interest in pursuing a career in STEM; especially after a lab internship last summer at Penn Medicine, I had been wanting to return to the lab environment. I know that TRIP will give me amazing tools to further my goals that center around research, medicine, and public health. I had a fantastic first session yesterday and have already learned so much through the assignments.

At Masterman, I’m an editor for my school newspaper and I volunteer in the library. Beyond school, I volunteer at Feast of Justice, a food pantry in the Northeast, and have recently joined the volunteer team at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital as well.
Music is a large part of my daily life. I play cello in Philadelphia Sinfonia and also study piano. I work with the non-profit Sharing Our Sound, an organization of student volunteers across the School District of Philadelphia that works to increase access and equity in K-12 music education. Beyond classical music, I’m an avid Beatles fan—I’ve been listening and reading about them for years. In addition to music, my interest in the arts is rooted in ballet, which I did for several years at The Rock School in Philly. I’m now interested in dance history, particularly the intersection of ballet with issues of race in America; I’ve researched Dance Theatre of Harlem and am looking into Philly’s rich dance history.