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Senior to Watch: Emma Sandoe
Ioana Patringenaru | May 27, 2008
This Week @ UCSD launched last year a new series called "Seniors to Watch." We are highlighting an outstanding UCSD senior each month. So far in 2008, we have caught up with an aspiring neuroscientist, an aspiring CEO, a student activist and a proponent of studying abroad. Click here to learn more about them. This month's Senior to Watch is Emma Sandoe, president of the UCSD Student Foundation.
When Emma Sandoe came to UC San Diego, she wanted to become a physician. Then she spent a summer working in a chemotherapy unit. Sandoe found herself processing a whole lot of paperwork, which sometimes meant patients couldn’t get the help they needed right away. That’s when she started thinking that her organizing skills might be better put to use reforming health care.
Emma Sandoe
Majors: General biology and political sciences
Minor: Urban studies and planning
Hometown:
Fremont, Calif.
Hobbies:
Reading, listening to NPR, knitting
“I’m really passionate about improving our health care system so that everyone in the United States can afford it,” said Sandoe, who will head this fall to George Washington University to pursue a master's degree in public health policy. “Saving lives is what it really comes down to.”
Her passion for health care reform has led her to a double major in general biology and political science here on campus. Asked about her favorite classes, she cites both embryology and California politics.
During the past five years at UCSD, Sandoe also developed a passion for student government and leadership. She is the president of the campus’ Student Foundation. She co-chairs the committee that revived an all-campus graduation celebration, set to take place June 19. She also has co-chaired UCSD Cares, has served on the Associated Students and on the Revelle Assembly.
Her love for UCSD and her desire to make the campus a better place make Sandoe an outstanding student, said Nicole Parker, the Student Foundation’s advisor and a staff member in the Alumni Association. “She’s really committed to getting people on board,” Parker said of Sandoe.
She was so focused on rewriting the Student Foundation’s bylaws that she spent much of her free time last summer working on them, Parker recalls. At the same time, Sandoe was studying for her GRE and working. The rewrite was only one aspect of a revamp of the foundation that Sandoe has been working on for the past 18 months. The organization had come to be seen as a retirement home for student leaders, she said. Now it’s buzzing with freshmen and reaching out to students more actively.
“We’ve made it a lot cooler to be involved in the Student Foundation,” she said.
During the October wildfires, Sandoe and fellow Student Foundation member Sarah Chang organized a donation drive for shelters. In two days, they managed to collect six carloads of goods.
Sandoe’s involvement in student government dates back to the friendships she made at Revelle College in her first years on campus. The foundation’s former president, a Revelle senior, encouraged Sandoe to join the organization in her sophomore year. She has been involved ever since.
But ask Sandoe about her proudest achievements at UCSD, and she’ll tell you about lobbying to keep Plaza on the Side, the Revelle eatery, opened late at night. She used to volunteer to staff it. It’s now open until 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and until midnight on Sunday. She’ll also tell you about winning the Spirit Night trophy for Revelle her sophomore year after spending two quarters planning a week’s worth of events.
Being a resident advisor at Revelle for two years also is a highlight of her time here. “It was probably the most rewarding thing I did,” she said. She still keeps in touch with the students she advised — at least once a week. “I’m really proud of how they’ve all turned out,” she said.
Sandoe said she now looks forward to graduation. As the co-chair of the All Campus Graduation Celebration committee, she won’t get any breaks till then. The event will help create a campus’ identity in students’ minds, she said. “I hope it will make people proud to belong to UCSD,” she added.
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