Hi my name is Erica Falk; I am currently a freshman at Arcadia University studying elementary and special education. I joined Nemesis my sophomore year of high school and quickly became a leader for the team. I was the Chief Operations Officer for Nemesis; organizing all competitions and being responsible for all the forms. As stressful and time consuming as it was I couldn’t have asked for a better job.
The most memorable trip for me was getting the team to Montreal in 2012. Everyone needed three documents: emergency contact information, notarized parental authorization and their passports. We even had three students from India and the Philippines who had green cards. I honestly didn’t think they were going to get across the border. What if they were held up? What would we do? I counted the passports and the teams documents 10 times and bundled them so everyone would be organized. When we came to the border, we all sat there...silent...afraid that something would go wrong. We were told not to joke around or say anything that would be misconstrued. The Canadian border patrol was funny and tried to make jokes, but no one was laughing because we wanted to make it to our competition on time. In the end, when we finally relaxed and talked to him, he complimented me saying he had never seen a girl this young get this many students across the border so quickly. What a relief!
Being a member on this amazing team really changed who I am. I learned so many things personally and professionally that I will be able to use throughout my life. I am now more comfortable and confident with all my work and who I am as a person. This is team is more to me than just a group of friends…it is more like my second family.
Even that I am away at college now, I find myself checking the team websites weekly, if not daily to see what they have been up to. Whenever I am home I make it a priority to stop at the tech lab and help in any way I can. Recently, I became a registered mentor for this team and I couldn’t ask for anything better. Being able to go home and have all the team members look up to you for advice and guidance is extremely rewarding and I wouldn’t have it any other way.