Students voices Stories That Inspire Change
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Discover this month’s featured stories from students within the Monarch Effect community — personal journeys that reflect resilience, ambition, growth, and the transformative power of education. Each month, we share a new collection of voices and experiences that inspire connection, opportunity, and impact.
Explore This Month’s Stories
Fridha Bernal
Hello, blog. Today I want to tell you about something I absolutely loved doing this month.
Have you ever wondered who is responsible for creating play spaces for children in underserved communities? I have. I always thought it might be the government, but I never really had a clear answer… until now. Together with my classmates, I had the opportunity to take part in a very special project. An organization called “La Base” reached out to our teacher to invite us to collaborate as architects in designing playground structures for children living in Tlajomulco. Our mission was clear: to create proposals that were accessible, functional, and adapted to their reality. To better understand the context, we visited the community. It was a very eye-opening experience because we were able to see firsthand the conditions many families live in. We even spoke with mothers and children to ask them what they felt was missing in their environment. This place is sometimes referred to as “the Chernobyl of Mexico,” since nearly 50 apartment buildings were started but left unfinished after the construction company went bankrupt, creating what became an abandoned city. For a time, this made the area quite dangerous. However, thanks to organizations like “La Base,” the community is now slowly being rebuilt and brought back to life.
Our work didn’t just involve designing a playground structure using low-cost materials—we also created a step-by-step construction manual. This is important because the organization runs workshops, classes, and activities for the community, and with this manual, residents themselves can take part in building the structures as part of those programs. When we presented our projects, members of the organization attended and evaluated our proposals. They gave us valuable feedback, focusing on the feasibility of each design. In the end, they selected my proposal along with six others from my classmates.
I’m very excited and hopeful that they will contact us again with updates about whether our designs have been built. It would be amazing to know that something we created can make a real difference in people’s lives.
Marco Guzman
Hi!! So… In April, I had the opportunity to visit Los Cabos during my spring break. Going back home is always great; it is always a blessing to get to see my family and friends. During my visit, I received some great news via a video call from the AI Safety Mexico team (I had met a board member during EAGxCDMX). They offered me the opportunity to collaborate with them for the Apart Research Global South Hackathon by hosting a hub for the three-day sprint event in Guadalajara!
Of course, I said yes! Since that day, I've been working very hard to secure the venue, look for possible allies, look for events where I could promote the Hackathon, and do my best overall to make the event happen. It is truly one of the highlights of my year to host such a prestigious event. I also completed the Frontier AI Governance course by BlueDot Impact, which was an amazing experience in itself—six weeks focused on readings and proposals about the current AI Governance landscape.
I'm sure you might be thinking… "What a great month Marco had!" And it certainly was. But just last Thursday… a nightmare of mine came true: my laptop died. With school assignments due the next day, video calls scheduled with the AI Safety Mexico team, deliverables to secure the hackathon venue, and a pitch to invite possible allies at Tequila y Datos (an amazing event), I had to move quickly.
I asked a friend to lend me a very old laptop he still owns. Little by little, at a tortoise's pace, I started to advance the most important things first: the presentation for Friday, some assignments, the video meetings, and so on. Finally, on Saturday, with help from my parents (thank you so much, Mom and Dad!), I got a brand-new laptop! It’s a total upgrade—more RAM, a better CPU. So, that’s a silver lining. Reflecting on it now, I realize I learned so much from having to work with what I had and trying to make the best of the situation. But I'm not going to lie—I was so stressed at first!
So, it's been a crazy month. Learnings, new projects, and family. A great, great month.
Nicolas Durán
I’ve spent the most part of April focusing on my tasks and my assignments as I come close to the end of my third year. The weather has been amazing, and I’ve been able to wind down and take a breather from the intensity of the past few months. In this month I’ve worked closely with my teams across various classes to deliver the best results for our projects we could possibly imagine, and the work has paid off. For my Consulting class we had a live client called “Snapdrill”, a company from Norway which is currently looking for strategies to enter the international market. I was focused on researching the USA market and the possible strategies to enter. One of the most interesting aspects of my research is when I found that a Scandinavian business attempting to enter the USA market will most likely fail if they do not get a USA based sales team—which became my main recommendation. I’m happy to say the client loved our presentation!
Another highlight from this month is my project of Cross-Cultural Psychology. In this assignment I had to design what a new multicultural and multinational society would look like. The hypothetical scenario was that these people are sent to Mars and I was tasked with creating the legal and political outline for how the society would be structured… however, as I progressed through this assignment, I realized how Hult, my university, is that same thing in its essence. A mix of people from all over the world, different cultures, and different beliefs, coming together under one identity—An international identity in which not one culture, race, or religion is better than the other, and that we all have the right to be ourselves and the obligation to respect others for doing the same. This is, what I’ve realized to be in its essence, what “global citizenship” means. It has been a great month, I have learnt so much, and I look forward to what comes next!
Tessa Roberts
Hi dear reader! It’s so nice to see you again.
April has been a month of growth, confidence, and realization. For as long as I can remember, I told myself that maths just weren’t for me. Whenever someone asked, I would quickly say I was bad at them, as if I needed to convince myself. Now I see that it was a way of protecting myself from failure. If I already believed I wasn’t good, then I wouldn’t feel disappointed when results came back.
Holding onto that identity felt easier than risking trying and not succeeding. But this month, I chose something different. I reached out for help and started tutoring with a friend. And surprisingly, I found myself excited to receive my grades. I’m even beginning to enjoy maths. More than that, this shift has given me the confidence to push myself in all my other classes as well.
When we assign ourselves an identity, whether it helps us grow or holds us back, we often let it define what we believe is possible. As if our future were already written. But it isn’t. We have the power to change who we are becoming, starting with what we choose to believe each day.
Throughout this month, I’ve also been thinking about you. About how I am where I am because of people like you. People who believe in expanding perspectives from a young age, who understand the value of education, and who see the students who might otherwise be overlooked within Cabo’s economic gap. Thank you for making higher education a real possibility for Monarch students. None of this would be possible without your support.
I hope to see you here next month.
Maria Jose Chavolla
April has felt like a month of balance. I have mostly been working, but I have also started to really explore the south of France. I got a train pass, which has made it so much easier to travel around, and it has been amazing. One of my favorite places so far has been Hyères. It was such a beautiful town, and it reminded me how lucky I am to be living in this part of the country.
Here in Marseille, I have also been discovering the Parc national des Calanques, which is honestly breathtaking. The combination of the sea, the cliffs, and the hikes is something I had never experienced before. As the weather gets warmer, I feel more and more like myself again. After the difficult start to the year, this has meant a lot.
On the weekends, I have been trying to go out and explore as much as I can. One of the best things about Marseille is how close nature is. You can leave the city and, within a short time, find incredible landscapes, quiet trails, and places that feel completely different from the busy streets. There is always something new to discover, and that has made this period really special.
At the same time, work (my Master’s internship) has been picking up quickly. Things are moving faster now, and I can feel the pressure building. My Master’s thesis defense is scheduled for mid-June, so my supervisor and I aim to have a first draft of my thesis ready by the last week of May. That feels very soon, honestly. I know I will need to start working longer hours to keep up.
But despite the pressure, I am really excited. I genuinely love my project, and we are starting to get very interesting and promising results. It is a good feeling to be challenged while also enjoying what I am doing.
April has been about finding a rhythm between work, exploration, and slowly feeling like myself again.