Stephanie Carlson

In my professional life, I tend to look for the hardest problems to solve, which I think stems from my natural curiosity since childhood. I tend to look for what I can learn from in situations, and how I can advance the most. I have taken on many different types of projects, during my college career, such as research on rats at Queens College, where we collected data, and then entered it into Excel to show our findings. Although, my most challenging feat was our Capstone course at Purdue University where we had to reflect on everything we learned in college and put together an entire PowerPoint presentation representing that. That was challenging to say the least, but I received an A-, and graduated with a 3.74 GPA. No matter what I am working on, I am very invested. I believe there’s things we can learn from everyone, our clients, colleagues, and people we meet. I also am extremely compassionate about issues that I care about, and have been involved in many peaceful protests that I hope to see change stem from. I enjoy being involved in something greater than myself, but where I feel that I can actually help to make a difference in this vast world. Sometimes we feel like the world is so immense that there’s no way that one little person like ourselves could actually make a real difference, but I don’t think that’s true. I believe that throughout our lives we leave little footprints in peoples’ hearts and minds, which follows them, and can make ripples that continue to spread leaving changes that we don’t even know we’ve caused. We are more powerful and important than we give ourselves credit for sometimes.
In my personal life, I spend a lot of time reading and usually have a focused area of interest for long periods of time. For instance, last year, I read and researched mass incarceration and the perverse financial incentives of the criminal justice system. I found it fascinating, and it sparked a desire in me to research more and help the cause— which eventually made me want to apply for law school- probably the most affordable, which is CUNY School of Law. I love staying super busy, and have plenty of time to do so since my daughter is at the age where she’d rather be hanging out with friends or at school doing her artwork. Ah, fourteen year old's! Outside of reading and researching, I also love to travel, cook with friends, and spend a lot of time running and being physically active outdoors.