Tell Me Your Story 3.6

In this episode, Shanell talked about growing up in Rhode Island. She lived mostly with her grandmother who was a school teacher and originally from Mississippi. It was her grandma’s influence that motivated her to invest in education by attending good schools since she was little. She attend catholic school as most of her family did. For middle school she attended a prep school with great diversity and guidance. In high school she attended a boarder school with good curriculum for academics and other activities.

We talked about her grandma’s cooking and her Mississippi/Creole cuisine.  We chatted about the 80s and childhood freedom.

She attended college in Northeastern pursuing a nursing career for 2.5 years but had to move back home to become her siblings guardian. She was 21 years old. It would take a while for her to go back to school. Meanwhile, she worked in MIT in 2008 and while searching for opportunities to finish her college education, she found a job at Harvard Medical School in 2010.  She applied for Harvard Extension School and took Liberal Arts with concentration in Psychology. She stayed in the Medical School for 6 years, got married, had kids while working there, then left Harvard and moved back to Rhode Island to be close to her family. She worked for a public school district in HR for almost 2 years and decided she should go back to Harvard.

She found opportunity at PLAP (Prison Legal Assistance Program) a student practice organization where student can get involved in real legal case work as early as their first year at HLS. She has good relationships with students and clinical instructors and is happy with the work she does.

Some fun facts about Shanell:

-Her favorite ice cream flavor is cotton candy.

-If she had to eat one thing for the rest of her life it would be  crêpes.

-She loved her visit to Cape Town, South Africa and hopes to take her family one day.

-If she could go back and give her younger self some advice, she’d say: “Don’t stress so much! I spent so much time working about that things that either worked themselves out or weren’t as important as I made them out to be.  Stress is a thief of joy and clarity and distracts you from living fully in the present.”