The View From the Other Side of the Window

Written by: Emely Gonzalez 🇸🇻

Headshot of Sophia da Silva. (Emelyn Gomez)

As people say, four years of college fly by quickly, often leading to the new reality of adulthood.  Sophia da Silva wants to take this new chapter as a window of opportunity. 

“I’m really excited to just go out and experience the world,” she said.

From writing news stories and scripts for publication, she not only discovered her passions but also important lessons on how to navigate the world. 

“The joy of life is not just things being happy and good all the time, but it’s the struggle and the difficult things that really makes life beautiful,” she said.

One of the lessons she learned came from her parents, a major part of who she is.

“[My mom] has a very, you know, ‘Pick yourself up, keep going’ sort of mentality,” she said.

Her parents have shaped not only her resilience to keep going but also her eagerness to embrace new experiences that did not always involve her cultural background.

“[They] have always wanted us to be very cultured, like [to] know about other people's experiences,” she said. “We always had NPR on in the car, and I keep NPR—I stay with that NPR on. Everyone knows when they get in my car, it's NPR.”

Da Silva, a journalism major, kept this mindset close to her, often reflected in her writing.

“One of my first stories for La Voz was about COVID-19 in Brazil and that was an idea that I got from my dad,” she said. “He hooked me up with some contacts that he knew in public health in Brazil, and that's the people I interviewed.”

Photo of the da Silva Family. (Courtesy of Sophia da Silva)

For da Silva, her future success is not based on wealth or fame but on the measure of a good life filled with new experiences rather than monetary value.

“My mom often says you can be successful in anything. You can be a successful artist. You can be a successful journalist. You can be a successful writer. If you find something that you like, it's much easier to become successful,” she said.

As she graduates with pride following her time at the University of Maryland, she hopes her work will make a difference. She sees both storytelling and education as ways to better understand the world and the people in it.

“I think journalism is a really big window into the world, into people's stories, into people's lives and experiences. Through my reporting on campus, I've gotten to see through a bunch of different windows,” she said. “That's really why I love journalism so much. And I think education itself is a window into the world, into understanding things on a deeper level, which I also think is very important.”

“There's people and there is a person that makes our life worth living. The fulfillment of a soul, a complete human being, the willingness to learn, the capacity to understand.  The curious mind ready to discover. The eyes that can truly see the beauty of the world. The immense person in a small body. That is Sophia” - the da Silva family.