Class of 2017

Hi, ’17s! I hope you have been staying safe and healthy during these unprecedented times. To brighten up your days, I’d like to share some of the things that our classmates were up to earlier in the year.

I’d like to congratulate Juli Feltrin and Shaun Sengupta on their move to Miami. Juli had been climbing up the ladder at Egon Zhender in New York, but decided to pursue her dream to earn a master’s in real estate development and urbanism at the University of Miami. She and Shaun made the move down to Florida earlier this year. Juli also has close family in the Miami area.

Shaun has always been passionate about auto racing. While in college he was an active member of Dartmouth Formula Racing and studied engineering at Thayer. When he began searching for new positions in Florida, he thought that would be an awesome opportunity to combine his passion for racing with his professional life, since Florida is home to some of the greatest NASCAR events. Shaun discovered the Concours Club, a new and category-disrupting automotive country club in the Miami area, on Forbes and Bloomberg. He took a risk and emailed the president about his interest in racing and engineering. Next thing he knew, Shaun was moving to Miami as the chief technologist for the Concours Club. His role involves business operations, IT management, and more, so his responsibilities are similar to his studies of engineering and systems integrations at Thayer.

Juli and Shaun now live in Miami Springs, which has a lot of open space, so social distancing is much easier there than it would have been back in New York. Plus, when they look out their windows, they see tall and beautiful palm trees rather than their old view of the Battery Park Tunnel. We’re wishing you two the best down in Florida!

Another trailblazing ’17 is Simone Schmid. After graduation Simone pursued her passions of social innovation and education. Simone earned a J.B. Reynolds foreign study scholarship that allowed her to teach at a small school in Kenya. This was an amazing experience for her because she taught the hardest-working and most focused students she’d ever met and they persevered despite challenging conditions. After her time in Kenya, Simone began work as an English teacher in Shenzhen, China. Living and teaching in China presented challenges, but things got easier once she could brush up on the Chinese skills she learned back in high school. Simone also found a strong community at a Protestant church that offers English services in Shenzhen. She went to weekly gatherings and Bible studies, performed in shows, and made great new friends at the church. Now that she is back in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, she can attend her church’s online sunrise services at a more reasonable hour with the time difference. Living back at home has been an adjustment, but she’s getting along well with her parents and her brother. She’s used this time to ramp up her work on the nongovernmental organization she launched with her friend; it will support education and feminine hygiene for disadvantaged youth. Depending on how things progress with Covid-19, Simone plans to begin teaching English in Madrid, Spain, this fall. Wishing you the best as well, Simone!

—Dorian J. Allen, 93 15th St., Apt. 3F, Brooklyn, NY 11215; dorallen@comcast.net