<aside> 🇩🇰 Please tell us more about the interests and hobbies in which you participate most often. You can also inform us of any interests and hobbies not listed above.

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• I attended performing arts middle and high schools, so I have a deep appreciation for the arts. I love attending theater performances and shows in general. I grew up going to plenty of art museums with my parents, so I love doing this, too! I spent this past summer working at my childhood sleep away camp as a bunk counselor, so I both LOVE kids and making crafts. I love to bedazzle, paint, make friendship bracelets, design graphics, and decorate anything and everything with colorful stickers! I took piano lessons for 14 years, so I of course appreciate a piano in the house. I don’t have too much experience cooking, but I would love to learn! Homemade food and treats makes me so happy. I’m not the most outdoorsy person in the world, but I love nature, being in the woods and appreciate the beauty of mother Earth. I love swimming and will go on a kayak ride if my family is into that! I absolutely love going to the gym! I am super into working out and lifting, as it makes me feel great in my body. I’ve been lifting since January 2022 and would definitely love to continue my strength training abroad, even if that means through an at-home gym.

<aside> 🇩🇰 Explain the types of relationships you hope to form in your housing & how your personality type might have an influence on these. (Include whether you most often would describe yourself as an extrovert or introvert in social interactions with others.) Describe what role you will play in contributing to your housing, including relevant skills and previous experiences that make you a good candidate for your top three housing preferences.

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I would love to build a deep relationship with my host family and really feel like they are my family away from home. I am an extrovert! I love connecting with new people and love, love, love spending time with kids. I am an enthusiastic, passionate, and type-A person who is very eager to be deeply involved in everything I am a part of. When it comes to skillsets I bring to the table, I have plenty of experience with kids and education! I study Computing, Design, and Pedagogy (a major I created) at college, seeking to answer the question, “How do we design the ideal computer science learning environment?” I am super passionate about exposing kids to a passion for coding and STEM, and would love to help out my host family’s kids with their studies in school. This past summer, I worked as a bunk counselor at my childhood sleep away camp. I was the counselor of the 9-11-year-old female-identifying campers in July and the 13-14-year-old female-identifying campers in August. I was well-liked among kids of all age levels at the camp, but I definitely got along particularly well with the 10 year old female-identifying campers, and many of them told me that they wished I was their counselor when I was with the older kids in August. At Barnard, I hold several jobs that center around people, kids, STEAM education, harnessing social media for social good, and being a leader in my community! I am extremely neat and organized, and am often complimented for my interior design skills. Overall, I am great with both kids and adults, have a wide range of experiences and skillsets to offer, and believe that my host family will deeply enjoy having me around for the semester.

I work as a Senior STEAM Student Educational Experience Designer where I help bring to life experiential STEAM learning experiences for students of participating Teacher Fellows we work with. I’ve worked on projects that taught 3rd graders how to use the engineering design process to develop an invention that would make their favorite playground better, filmed videos explaining how to build a toy crane and other physics concepts, developed a wizard-inspired math quest on my college campus for a 5th grade class (half of whom have disabilities) to practice their multiplication, decimal, and fraction skills, so much more! I also work in Admissions at my college and frequently do Instagram takeovers answering questions from prospective students, along with give tours.

<aside> 🇩🇰 We ask you write a letter of introduction which will be sent to your fellow housing residents or future host. Remember this is their first impression of you! Your essay should be approximately one page in length and could include the following information:

• "Hello roommates" or "Dear Host!"
• An introduction of yourself and your background
• A few words about your family
• Where you live and have lived
• Previous travel and/or international experience
• Your interests, hobbies, etc.
• Goals for your semester at DIS
• What you look forward to contributing to your time together
• Please remember to end the letter properly (e.g. "Best regards, Kari" or "See you soon - Brad") </aside>

Dear Host Family,

Hej! My name is Izzy Lapidus and I am SO EXCITED TO MEET YOU! I’m a junior at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City. I’m a proud New Yorker and have lived here my entire life.

I am an only child and am very close with my dad. My dad is a literary agent who works with authors in the sci-fi and fantasy world. If you want a book rec, I certainly have a lot. He is also a watercolor painter, black-and-white street photographer, and epic poet! He is definitely where I get all my “artsy” genes from. My mom passed away when I was 16-years-old, but she is my biggest role model and I take her with me wherever I go. She would be so excited to hear that I’m going to Denmark and staying with a host family! My mom was a women’s right’s lawyer and was the Director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for 18 years. She dedicated her life to making the world a better, more equal place, for women, girls, and all gender-marginalized identities. She is said to have “renovated the house that RBG built.” I love my parents and am more than grateful to have been raised by them. I am a very proud daughter!

As I mentioned, I’m from New York City. I have lived in Brooklyn my entire life, and going abroad will be the longest time I have ever not lived in New York City! Growing up, it was very important to my parents that I was “cultured,” so they made it a top priority that our family was able to travel to Europe at least every other year. I have been to Italy (2x), France (2x), Spain, London, Switzerland (for a few hours while waiting for my connecting flight) and…Denmark! I traveled to Denmark when I was about 12 years old to visit my dad’s best friend who was born in France but has lived in Aarhus for years. I’ve also been to Tanzania (and Dubai for a connecting flight) through an education program I was a part of in high school where I taught at an elementary school in Moshi, Tanzania.

I am interested and passionate about so much. My life mission is to re-imagine the perception of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) in an effort to make the STEM community a better place for everyone, but especially gender-marginalized identities and disabled people. I am particularly passionate about computer science (CS) education and getting young folks to learn how to code! I created my own major at Barnard studying Computing, Design, and Pedagogy seeking to answer the question, “How do we design the ideal computer science learning environment?” I’m also a big social media person and frequently create Instagram and TikTok content sharing my life at Barnard and studying CS + education. I also work in Admissions at Barnard, so I’m all up on the Barnard social media platforms, too. I’m also super into fashion, accessorizing, and bright colors! I would describe my style as that of a colorful, gender neutral child’s. Most of my clothing is thrifted from the boys and girls sections. I also absolutely LOVE to bike, so I can’t wait to bike around Denmark like a true Dane!

My goals for my semester at DIS are to be immersed in the Danish way of life and to open my perspectives about ways of being outside the confines of an American, capitalist society. I am in the Child Development and Diversity program at DIS and will be working in a classroom one day a week. I am so inspired by Nordic pedagogy and can’t wait to learn more about Nordic pedagogy and bring it to my education back home! My senior thesis project consists of creating my own CS education course to be taught at Barnard, so I’m very excited to use my studies at DIS to inform the direction of my thesis.

I am so excited to spend time with your family. I hope to build a relationship that will last far beyond my semester abroad. I am so grateful that you have given me a place in your home and I promise to be as respectful as possible. I can’t wait to get to know you all.

See you all very, very soon! I’m counting down the days.

All the best,

Izzy Lapidus

<aside> 🇩🇰 Comments for DIS Housing Coordinators.

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Hi DIS Housing Coordinators,