Hello, class of 2017! Another congratulations on your graduation. In a few weeks we will have been college graduates for half a year. Not surprisingly, many of our classmates have been doing some magnificent things since June 11.

Jorge Siwady Kattan spent his summer in Montevideo, Uruguay, before returning on campus to finish his B.E. He worked as a consultant that enhances building designs to make them more sustainable. He found this company through his own research of companies in South America since he feels at home in the region. For work he had the opportunity to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, but once his meetings ended, he went to the local beaches. In his time away from the office Jorge visited colonial towns outside of the capital city and searched for the best local cafes and restaurants, mostly revolving around his admiration for steak and Italian cuisine.

This July Kira Farris began work at State Street in Boston, where she is in the professional development program alongside Paul Ghazal, Kyle Nickerson and 50 other recent grads. Kira is currently in her first rotation in fund accounting and loves her coworkers. She recently moved to the North End with her Chi Delta sisters Sara Winfree and Alyssa Gonzalez and they had their first roommate dinner, where they prepared truffle risotto and garlic tilapia. As a New Jersey native Kira has done a great job acclimating to the Boston lifestyle. She won company box seats for a Red Sox game through State Street’s raffle. Luckily, she received a complimentary hat with the tickets because she’s a die-hard Yankees fan. In her free time she has been training for the CHaD Hero half marathon with Alison Wolf ’15.

Another ’17 who has been spending ample time with Dartmouth alums is Emily Greene. Emily started her summer visiting Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam and China with a former coworker, her family, Ally Benedict and Becca Holland. Out of all the places she visited, she loved Vietnam the most because of its history. Later in the summer she and Katy Sprout went to Memphis, Tennessee, to visit Emma Sisson and the three then drove to the tiny town of Perryville, Missouri, to gaze at the total eclipse. During her time at home in Connecticut Emily studied for exams to transfer her EMT certification to Massachusetts before her big move to Boston with Christiana Johnson. In Boston she’ll be working as a software development engineer for Alexa at Amazon.

Graham Rigby decided to continue his studies this summer and attended the 2017 summer linguistics institute of the Linguistic Society of America with numerous graduate students pursuing Ph.D.s and writing dissertations. Each institute is hosted by a different university and this summer it was held at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. At the institute he took three courses: “Directionality in Language Change,” “Genetic Creolistics and Genetic Linguistics” and “Structure of Hmong-Mien Languages.” He found the program to be a worthwhile experience because he gained valuable knowledge and met young linguists interested in topics that overlap his own fascinations. Outside of the classroom Graham celebrated his 23rd birthday in Boston with some friends from high school as well as Ben Rhutan, Sean Cann and me.

Thanks for reading and please keep me updated on your accomplishments!

—Dorian Allen, 33 Kensington Terrace, Maplewood, NJ 07040; (973) 986-5988; dorallen@comcast.net