My name is Somaya Tabbara, also go by the name Maya. I am 18 years old and currently pursuing a Child Psychology bachelors at City College. I grew up in Brooklyn during my childhood years, and then moved to Staten Island at the age of ten. My parents are both Lebanese born but came to the states in their adolescence. Growing up, my mother always stressed how important traveling is. Every summer, I would spend my summers in the sunny, lively city of Beirut, Lebanon. There were years when my mother would take me along to explore a new country. So far I have gone to 15 different countries, 3 of which I visited lived in on my own. One of my proudest accomplishments was the gap semester I took off to travel around Europe in Fall 2018. Starting off in Igualada, Spain, just on the outskirts of Barcelona, I had gotten a job to tutor two Spaniard children in English. With the rest of my spare time, I met different international students in this small town that I confidently can call my lifelong friends. Then I made my way to London which is without a doubt my favorite city to live in. It reminds me of home yet gives me the change that I would like to have in my life. I plan on doing my year abroad there as well as my masters degree to ensure that I can work and live their for the continuous future. I spent my time exploring the diversity of the city and all it had to offer. With my time spent there, I was confident in my aspirations to living there. For the last part of my semester, I chose to go to Edinburgh, Scotland and worked as an Northern Levantine Arabic speaking tutor for two Scottish children. With my spare time, I got to see all of Scotland’s naturalistic beauty and the lively nightlife. The biggest realization I had is that the Scots are really as nice as they are known out to be. Throughout these few months, I made visits to the Netherlands and Switzerland as well.

After all this, I became confident that child psychology is a career path that I would really enjoy and aspire in. Working with children has been apart of every job that I have had, whether that was being a children’s party attendant at Rabs Lanes or a daycare teacher at Ivy Prep Learning Center. Although I am a psychology major, I do believe that I can achieve important qualities from this class. With discussions and talking about social norms, I can see how my peers comprehend certain dilemmas and what the world we live in consists of. I do hope that more students become vocal about their opinions during discussions as I do love to hear diverse point of views. I would also like to see how everyone incorporates their culture into their work. I take a lot of pride in my culture/country and find the beauty of sharing it so fulfilling. One of the big problems we face in the states is not accepting other cultures and celebrating them no matter how different they are. In the end, we all are unique within ourselves, values and traditions. Encouraging acceptance and understanding is what the first step to a better community is.