When I first set foot in California, leaving behind the sun-kissed hills of Italy, my heart was heavy with anticipation and anxiety. As someone raised in a profoundly Catholic family, faith was not just a tradition—it was the very fabric of my upbringing. Church bells, Sunday Mass, and a close-knit parish community were constants in my life. The thought of crossing the Atlantic for my studies filled me with excitement and a silent worry: Would I find a place where my faith could thrive? Would I see a community that shared my values, or would I feel lost in the vastness of a new culture?
Amid deadlines, data, and delayed dreams, it’s easy to overlook the fact that life doesn’t wait for us to solve every problem. At Caltech, where ambition surrounds us and the future feels constant, the present can easily fade into the background. Yet beneath the weight of equations, lab reports, and sleepless nights lies a truth waiting to be unearthed: hic et nunc—“here and now.” This simple, ancient Latin phrase serves as a profound reminder that our only true existence is in the present.
When I first set foot on Caltech’s campus, I felt like a contestant on a reality show called Survivor: Genius Island. I was fresh off the plane from Milan, armed with a suitcase full of dreams, a double major in biology and chemistry (because why not suffer twice as much?), and a secret hope to someday heal cancer. I planned to take the world by storm—or, at the very least, survive my first quarter without accidentally setting something on fire in the lab.
I had my mouth pressed into the sand. I was breathing hard—desperate, shallow, uneven. I could feel the grains entering my nose, throat, and lungs. Somewhere nearby, I heard the rapid thudding of hooves, the panicked exhale of a frightened horse. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was. I couldn’t piece it together. The memories didn’t come in order; they arrived like broken glass, sharp and disjointed. My helmet. My shoulder. The ground. Pain. Sharp pain. A blinding throb in my knee.
At first glance, Dr. Loraine Lundquist might strike you as a scientist with her head in the stars. After all, she holds a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley and once helped launch a satellite to study the Sun’s magnetic field. But spend an hour with her, and that’s precisely what we did during the recent SASS Lunch hosted by the Caltech Y—and you’ll quickly realize that her gaze is firmly grounded on Earth, with a heart set on building a more just and sustainable future right here in Los Angeles.
Hello everyone, my name is Camilla Fezzi, and you probably know me, always running around, without any free time, and I am kind of recognizable because of my Italian (fashion style) 😜. I’m a freshman at Caltech, with the goal of double majoring in biology and chemistry and dreaming, one day, of becoming a doctor and researcher in the oncology/neuroscience field. But before I am any of those things, I am Italian—a daughter, a sister, a friend. I grew up beneath the Verona sun, in a place where the dinner table is sacred and where family is the compass that guides everything. I have always known warmth—of home-cooked meals, of laughter echoing through ancient streets, of a mother’s arms around my shoulders. I know what it is to feel safe, to take fresh water and a doctor’s appointment for granted.
If you stroll past the Olive Walk on a sunny Pasadena day, you might see something magical in the air. Is it the scent of freshly pranked upperclassmen? The echo of the Fleming cannon? Or perhaps it’s just the spirit of Caltech’s brand of wizardry—a house system that would make even J.K. Rowling jealous. At Caltech, the hallowed tradition of “houses” isn’t just about where you sleep; it’s about forging family, engineering pranks, and unleashing a level of creativity that would make even Dumbledore drop his lemon drop.
Today, I want to talk about a figure that we too often take for granted: coaches, instructors, guides who surround us and who, in one way or another, transform our lives. They are like sculptors who, with patience and dedication, shape the clay that we are, smoothing the edges with the chisel and helping us find a shape that we often cannot see on our own. And yet, we never thank them enough.
Connecting three philosophers that created a specific school of thought in Magna Grecia. The Mediterranean sun hung low over the horizon, casting long shadows across the olive groves…
On April 12, 2025, members of the Caltech community gathered for the annual “Make a Difference Day” event organized by the Caltech Y. This article explores one volunteer team’s day at Friends in Deed, a local nonprofit food pantry in Pasadena, highlighting their community impact and personal growth through service.
