Name: Ingridy Foltran
Major: Civil Engineering
Classification: Junior
Graduation date: Spring 2025
Hometown: Osasco, São Paulo, Brazil
Extracurricular activities: “I’m a volleyball player. I also work as a video producer for the [Office for] Sustainability. And I’m kind of an influencer on Instagram.”
What are the differences between your hometown and the United States? “The lifestyle in general and mainly the English. So, like, it would be the language because my first months [here] was kind of hard for me for [to] adapt to it. But after, I enjoy … English and mainly here in the [Rio Grande] Valley. I’m learning more Spanish. … And I will say the lifestyle in general, too. Because in Brazil, I had my mom with me, so we [would] do everything together. But here you have to do everything for you. So I always say that I came to the U.S. as, like, a girl with dreams, 18 years old, like wow. … Right now, I’m a woman. … I know what my goal is. I know what I need to do and focus on it.”
If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? “In Brazil, it’s something that I love and we don’t have here in the U.S. So, we eat rice and beans with protein every day. … So, if I could eat something every day … [it] would be rice and beans with a protein. So meat, chicken [or] eggs.”
What is on your bucket list? “I have actually a tattoo on my [calf] for, like, the world. So, one of my goals is to, like, travel the world to know more. And that’s a thing that coming to [the] U.S. and being [an] international student … allowed me to, because I have been to a lot of places here in the U.S. that I didn’t know that I was able to visit. … Also, I want to one day make a book. Also, I want to be a project manager or work with sustainability-related engineering. What else? I want to marry, have kids, family, bring my mom to the [United] States or wherever I will be in the future because my mom is my everything.”
Who is your role model? “My role model is my mom because my whole life was just me and her. So, I wouldn’t be able to be here, anyways, without her. And she is my role model because she’s, like, so hardworking. And everything that she conquered in her life she made, like, almost by herself. … I want to be the same mom that she is for me, for my kids. And she’s, like, an inspiration for me.”
What’s your favorite childhood memory? “My childhood memory would be with my mom, too, because, like, she made the best foods. And that’s, like, something that I miss a lot, is just having her by my side. So, in Brazil, when I was a kid, we used to [spend] time together. Doesn’t matter if you had too much money, or if you have too much material stuff, just to be us [two together]. It can be at the church, it can be, like, in a park, or whatever, just like being with her and having a great time talking. And she’s my best friend. It was such a great time. I miss that.”
What advice would you give other international students? “It’s not easy to come here to the U.S. and to make everything possible, but it’s so worth it. So, all the challenges you will face will be worth it. … My first semester was a little bit hard. I was like, ‘Wow, like what’s going on?’ But after, like, I became another person. So, now, I’m very proud of the woman that I became because of the decisions that I made. So, for the international [students] that are really thinking to come here to the U.S. or to go to another place, be brave. Go and do it, because it’s going to be worth it.”
–Compiled by Fatima Gamez Lopez
