Baret Scholars

Imagine a week in which you meet and learn about Mexico City through leaders like:  Carlos Tello Díaz (writer and professor at Mexico's National University) Damian Fraser (Investor, CEO and Founder of Miranda Partners) Almudena Ocejo (Government leader in implementing policies to encourage citizen participation and accountability) This was the Baret's Mexico City Fellowship. Led by our President, Alexandra Garcia, and Daniel De La Torre Velasco, they gained a nuanced understanding of Mexico City through its leaders and history. They attended a design forum at El Eco experimental museum, and listened to mariachi bands at Plaza Garibaldi. They visited a variety of museums, including the Museo Nacional de Antropología, and cultural sites, including iconic monuments and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In their downtime, they tried tortas and churros and ate at one of the oldest restaurants in the city, Sanborns Los Azulejos, which is located in a former palace. This was enlightening, experiential learning at its best! Scholars, sound off in the comments below about your favorite moment in your Fellowship.

Many of the Baret Scholars are interested in pursuing a career as lawyers. They chose the Legal Nexus Fellowship, spending a week in New York City with their Fellow Claudia Kahindi, who has a law degree from Oxford and an LLM from Columbia, and Caren Hanssmann! To find out what a career in Big Law is like, they spent a day in dialogue with lawyers at Debevoise & Plimpton, a top international law firm headquartered in Manhattan with over 600 lawyers. Senior Adviser Ulysses Smith and Senior Associate Gabrielle McKenzie spoke to our students about how to use a law degree to make an impact. They even talked about some of the pro bono cases they are handling. And since the United Nations is headquartered in New York, they took a trip there and spoke to some representatives of the UN.

It’s been one week in São Paulo. Our students are exploring the city with new and more informed eyes—learning valuable lessons from a series of inspiring leaders at our Morning Program. oscar rodrigues alves — Brazilian film director; Jorge Wolney Atalla Jr. — President of the Brazilian Red Cross in São Paulo; Bruce Glazier, MSc. at LBS and PDC at FDC — Chairman of Fex Agro's Advisory Board; Cristina Callejon Monteiro — Seasoned Business leader and Councillor for São Paulo under the NOVO party; Amy Chan — Founder and CEO of Valoradar; Danilo Negrette — Founder of Café Quilombo and Larissa Tenorio de Campos To all our incredible speakers, thank you for taking the time to engage with our students.

Baret Scholars visited St. Paul's School, Sao Paulo last week, where over 100 students gathered to learn more about Baret. It was inspiring to watch Gregório Pozzo, an alumni of St Paul's '24, share his experience as a Baret Scholar with his peers, discussing what he has learned on his journey so far and why he chose to join us. He offered a glimpse into the life of a Baret student, alongside Olivia Centeno, a UWC Alumna, who also reflected on her own experience with Baret. They were joined by members of the our team: Andi Zhao, Guilherme Ortiz, Revelyn Fernandes, and Dean Jason D. Patent, Ph.D.. A huge thank you to St Paul's School and Augusto Neto for hosting us. We are excited about the new connections with the bright and motivated students of St. Paul's.

If you're interested in film, then this is for you. Earlier this month, 16 of our students were led by Baret Fellow and filmmaker Ronan MacRory and Weronica Brzezinska to Los Angeles. Ronan lived in LA for 15 years and brought his deep knowledge of the city, its people, and its art to life for our students. Who did they meet? Catherine Hardwicke, Director of Twilight (they were invited to her beautiful house) Nancy Richardson, editor of Twilight (learning about the director-editor relationship) Jeffrey Hevert, MTV reality show producer Battiste Fenwick (Pedro), Esther Julie-Anne Shubinski (Justice, Women in the Front Seat), Justin Lerner (Girlfriend, Cadejo Blanco, The Automatic Hate) Sarah Labrie, TV writer/producer and novelist (Minx, No One Gets to Fall Apart) Thank you so much for the time you spent with our students! Was this Fellowship better than fiction? We'll let our students answer that question in the comments!

Is All That Jazz The Real Soul of America? Nine of our students went on their Fellowship to New Orleans with our incredible Fellows Sammi Bennett and Revelyn Fernandez to explore this question and immerse themselves in a different dimension of the American experience. It was a week of experiential learning, intertwining cultural immersion with artistic creation, and a whole lot of fun! A search for the soul of America took them all over New Orleans - the French Quarter, the NOLA Museum of Jazz, the Art for Art's Sake event, the Presbytere Museum, the Second Lines parade, the Whitney Plantation, the Manchac swamp, a Mardi Gras exhibit, a jazz club, and a journey down the Mississippi.

Is All That Jazz The Real Soul of America? Nine of our students went on their Fellowship to New Orleans with our incredible Fellows Sammi Bennett and Revelyn Fernandes to explore this question and immerse themselves in a different dimension of the American experience. It was a week of experiential learning, intertwining cultural immersion with artistic creation, and a whole lot of fun! A search for the soul of America took them all over New Orleans - the French Quarter, the NOLA Museum of Jazz, the Art for Art's Sake event, the Presbytere Museum, the Second Lines parade, the Whitney Plantation, the Manchac swamp, a Mardi Gras exhibit, a jazz club, and a journey down the Mississippi.

We at Baret Scholars, are excited to announce our partnership with United World Colleges (UWC International). This collaboration reflects our shared mission of promoting international & intercultural understanding, celebrating diversity, and learning through experiences. We currently have 17 wonderful UWC students in our cohort who truly reflect what it means to be a global citizen. Baret Scholars and UWC will continue to support the development and growth of students from diverse backgrounds from around the globe. Our applications for the 2025-26 cohort are now open and we cannot wait to have more UWC students join us next year!

Last week was the final week of the Morning Program in New York City. Our Scholars had the privilege of hearing from an outstanding roster of speakers: William Electric Black, seven-time Emmy Award-winning writer for his work on Sesame Street; Dagmar Weaver-Madsen, distinguished cinematographer; Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian; John Hocking, Former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General; Jonathan Karp, President and CEO of Simon & Schuster; Thomas Jakobsen, Film & Exhibition Producer; Diego Marroquin, a think-tanker and Inaugural Bersin-Foster North America Scholar; Robbie Myers, Former Editor-in-Chief at Elle Magazine; Billy McBride, Former NFL athlete; Ian Thomas, Former Chief Revenue Officer at World View; Marquise Stillwell, Founder of Openbox; Evelyn Webster, CEO of SoulCycle and Richard Stengel, Former US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Thank you to all of our speakers for taking the time to share their wisdom with our Scholars!

As the New York morning program comes to an end, here is some of the speakers who stood out to me in the past 2 weeks. The concept of the morning in program across Baret introduces speakers who find success in different industries, kindly they bring their insights and trajectory. All scholars leave the morning with great amount of knowledge that sticks in our mind throughout the week. One of the best outcomes of the morning is the reflections it triggers. As Daniel Bögre: the co- founder of Wikitongues was on of the speaker who spoke to me the most as he acts in the field of globalization and linguistics. The platform of Wiki Tongues allows many to have easy access to their ancestry and culture. It speak to me as it turns tech into a positive way in how to navigate globalization. The ngo also supports projects in indigenous communities. After his speech, I had the opportunity to have a one on one conversation with him regarding the different impacts of globalization over the past decades, as well as share and reflect on my past experiences with him. Dagmar Weaver-madsen: An inspiring cinematographer who grew her way from Vimeo series to HBO, later the famous Only Murders in the Buildings and League of their own. Throughout her work she passionately talked about the empathy and feelings involved in a films storytelling and how cinematographers play a crucial role in it. She highlighted the differences between low budget and high budget films and how it plays on the filmmaking freedom. To end her talk, she approached her idea of success