Ashlie Alvarez Simms ’26. Photo by Keegan Houser.
Deeply involved in the Associated Students of the University of California, Alvarez Simms thrives on supporting her fellow members, such as “promoting office bonding, collaboration, and civic engagement” and helping them successfully execute their ideas. Besides “making a big, lasting impact on the campus,” she says, working in student government means she is “changing the status quo of what it means to be first-generation.”
Thanks to a scholarship and acceptance into Cal in the Capital, Alvarez Simms interned last summer at a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. While her communication skills grew, she says the D.C. environment “did not provide the supportive and inclusive experience I had hoped for.” She now feels drawn to nonprofits, where she can build a more direct and “special relationship to the community.”
Even though politics are not for her, the pass she received touring the House of Representatives signifies her potential. “If you told me that I was going to be spending a summer in D.C., I would have said, ‘No way,’” she says. “Berkeley has given me so many opportunities that I hadn’t even dreamed of.”
