For Valery Mayorga `26, the thread connecting four years at Grinnell is a simple one — finding belonging in new places and bringing something back to the communities that shaped her. A native of Nicaragua, Mayorga came to Grinnell uncertain whether she would find the same sense of home she had left behind. She found it, somewhat unexpectedly, through birds.
Mayorga was one of the students who helped establish Grinnell Birding Club as a formal student organization, building on a club that first formed during her tutorial class, Birds, Nature, Joy and Belonging.
The club gave her both a connection to home and a community at Grinnell.
Birding Club both helped Mayorga find a connection to home and a community in Grinnell. “I learned so much about birds in Iowa, and I also found a community of people who had a similar interest.”
Mayorga said her experience being an international student has been great in many ways. “I think being able to have a somewhat different perspective, not going to a high school in the US and having a different life experience from my peers, has provided the opportunity for a great exchange of ideas.”
That same impulse toward connection carried into her work outside the classroom. Through the Service Learning Work Study program at Davis Elementary School, Mayorga said she found a way to engage with Grinnell beyond the campus itself.
Working with students and their families, she said, challenged assumptions she had about the town and the people in it. “I think there are many misconceptions that students have of the people in town, and I was able to experience them for myself and realize that they are people who are willing to talk to students and see what they have to say,” she said.
The work, she added, felt meaningful in a way that went beyond the paycheck. “I knew that my time and effort with the kids was meaningful,” she said.
In the classroom, Mayorga said that she values the perspectives of others within her class discussions most. “I find it so illuminating to hear my classmates talk about what they think about a reading. Especially when the professor is good at facilitating the discussion.”
One of the most formative of those was Introduction to Latin American Studies with her adviser, Professor Valérie Benoist, whose teaching Mayorga credits with drawing her toward a Latin American studies concentration.
Outside of coursework, a Grinnell externship placement with an alumnus working in immigrant communities gave Mayorga her clearest sense yet of the kind of work she wants to do after graduation.
That direction came into focus further through the Vivero Digital Fellowship, which Mayorga called one of the most important parts of her time at Grinnell.
Through the fellowship, she has been working with the Inclusion and Disabilities Services office to develop a website on digital accessibility for student organizations, a project designed to make accessibility resources easier to find and use without depending on one-off workshops.
Mayorga plans to carry that orientation toward people and community into her career. Reflecting on her time at Davis Elementary, her externship work and the Vivero Digital Fellowship, she said she hopes to work in a field where she can continue serving others directly, in the same way her experiences at Grinnell have allowed her to do.
