Hello! My name is Emma Ferrell. I’m a freshman double-major in English and Italian, and I absolutely love reading and writing. I’m interested in becoming an editor one day, or perhaps a teacher. I love helping my peers with writing assignments and I hope to work in the HUB here at SCU someday soon. When I'm not at school, I live with my mom, dad, and little brother Ian. He's now a freshman in high school, and I love him to pieces. 

Although I’ve never considered myself a girly-girl, many of my hobbies fit your classic feminine stereotype. I like scrapbooking, cooking, and baking, and I occasionally crochet, sew, and knit. I also love singing and drawing, though I’m not trained in either and spend my time figuring things out for myself. My biggest passions, however, are writing, music, and dancing.

I’m from Sacramento, California, and have lived there my entire life. When I was little I lived in an apartment complex near a university. Our neighborhood was pretty diverse and there were a lot of students and young families with kids my own age. I remember waiting by our second-story window to see my friends come home from school. I spent my afternoons going door to door asking friends to come out and play. There was always someone to play with. When I was five my dad asked me if I wanted to go to school or stay home with him. I decided I wanted to be homeschooled, stuck with it until high school, and have never for a moment regretted it.

When I was eight, my family moved into a house. We lived on a double dead-end street, and most of our neighbors were young Russian families. There was one girl two years older than me, otherwise the kids were all under the age of five. They didn't speak much English, and I certainly couldn't speak Russian, yet we became a pretty tight-knit family over the next few years. We played games, hosted "classes" over the Summer, and even staged a couple of plays. Growing up, I never really had many friends my own age. The girl closest to my age in our homeschool circle was two years younger. However, I don't think this stunted my social skills or kept me from learning how to interact with my peers, as some people wonder. Rather, it taught me how to make close friendships with people much older and younger than me. As a result of my childhood, I've never really understood the social partitions. that seem to exist between people of different ages or grades. To this day, some of my best friends are four to five years younger.

Just as in the Fall, this quarter has been a time of pretty incredible growth for me, both academically and personally. I feel that I’ve learned a lot about myself and my writing, as well as how to relax and just go with the flow of my life. I was pretty anxious coming into CTW2, however, the feeling is certainly gone now. This quarter has been a journey towards a more relaxed, accepting perspective towards school, and I’m hopeful that it will only continue as my time at Santa Clara progresses.