Marcus Mello

Hometown: Somerset, Mass.
High School: Somerset High School
Intended major: Art history
Possible career: Architect

During his senior year in high school, Marcus was secretary of the National Honor Society, a class representative on student council, and Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper. He was chosen as the school's recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Good Citizen Award, for which he won the Massachusetts and Northeast region awards as one of eight finalists in the country. An applicant in the national Ron Brown Scholar Program during his senior year of high school, Marcus was chosen as one of 33 semi-finalists. He was a volunteer docent and researcher at the Fall River Historical Society and as a peer tutor in high school. He also participated in DECA, an organization that helps students develop skills for successful business careers, build self-esteem, experience leadership and practice community service, as well as Model UN, and won awards in both activities. A passionate four-year varsity wrestler, he was a three-time league all-star and state placer and finished his career with the second most wins in his school's wrestling program's history.

Marcus has used his Evans opportunity grant to attend the Fraticide and Fraternite Conference hosted by the University of London's Human Rights Consortium. After his freshman year, he spent two months in Quito, Ecuador with ELEP (Experiential Learning Ecuadorian Program), working in a bank setting in the field of microfinance. He analyzed client credit records, visited client enterprises and updatd the client database. He also improved his Spanish by taking classes and traveling throughout the country.

An externship over winter break of his sophomore year with the architecture firm of Swarthmore alumna Catherine Paplin '86 helped him focus on his future career goals. He spent the following summer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design's Career Discovery. The six-week program included intensive studio work, critiques, site visits and lectures.

At Swarthmore, Marcus is Editor-in-Chief of The Phoenix, Swarthmore's weekly campus newspaper. He is also a volunteer for College Access of Delaware County in Chester, PA, where he tutors high school students to prepare them for the SAT/ACT. He works as an ITS Consultant and has served on the Executive Board of the Swarthmore African-American Student Society (SASS). This winter break, Marcus will learn more about education in New York City through an externship with Emily Shu at the Bronx Envision Academy.