Rachel V. Grace
Student Ambassador at University of Vermont
Rachel is a senior Sociology major & English/Political Science double minor. She’s originally from Metrowest Boston (Sudbury, MA), but has lived in Burlington, VT since starting college. She was a Semester in the City Fellow in Spring 2025 as an Impact & Evaluations Fellow at Uncornered Boston.
On campus, Rachel is a club member of UVM's Planned Parenthood Generation Action chapter, as well as a Network Manager for EMA Foundation (Empathy Motivates Action), an education nonprofit dedicated to re-centering school curriculum and learning around student agency, empathy-forward storytelling, and purpose.
Q: How did you find out about SITC/SFI & why did you decide to participate in it?
A: “I found out about SITC through my advisor, who knew I was interested in getting an internship under my belt at some point during my college career. I was really drawn to SITC because I was averse to committing a whole semester to what I thought the conventional college internship experience was like: something where I would be doing something menial (maybe getting coffee for higher-ups) and sort of forced to work on a project I wasn't necessarily super into. SITC offered the complete opposite -- reassurance that I would be doing something meaningful to my own professional development, as well as to the surrounding community. I thought SITC would be an opportunity to learn more about the ‘real world’ than I had previously been able to, but with a helping hand along the way to guide me when I ran into issues. The experience was totally as such, kind of a crash course / test-run of what entering the social work sector might look like but with plenty of support to alleviate anything that got dicey.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: “I have always been totally passionate about social advocacy, which I think accounts for my interests in the social sector and in Sociology. I am really into investigating our various social systems, especially failures in broad everyday institutions, with the goal of figuring out how to make the world a better place on a large scale.
I think that we, as a collective, deserve a better world -- one that serves us and is sustainable for generations to come! My primary motivating factor in my work and life is the belief that true positive societal change will only come about if we demand this (with respect, of course).”
Q: What are some of your interests?
A: “I am a total foodie (love cooking food, eating food, trying new food, learning about food, etc.), I love learning new languages (can currently speak Mandarin and French, working on Italian and ASL), I love reading (currently re-reading Orwell's "1984" in search of relevant lessons), I love listening to music (Jeff Buckley is my current wave), being outside, and hanging out with friends.”
Q: If you could visit a fictional world for a day & be immersed in it, where would you go & why?
A: I would want to go to the forest from the Lorax with all of the truffula trees (in the pre-deforestation portion of the book)
Q: What do you wish you knew before participating in Semester in the City?
A: “The biggest advice I would give a prospective SITC student is that this program is a really good way to build up momentum, and could very well be the push you need to get things going. Prior to participating in SITC, I felt like I was kind of floundering -- I wanted to do something to move myself along professionally, but also personally (and ideally, those two areas of growth would intersect in some way). SITC didn't single-handedly allow me to change the world, but it did give me an avenue to see that I am more capable than I thought I was; I learned ways in which I can take action now, without having finished college or anything like that. I think for a lot of students in humanities right now, knowing where one's place in the world or workplace is a little nebulous. SITC helped show me avenues to where I might be able to fit, and how to keep the ball rolling.”