Out of the 23 schools to which Liza Jaye ’14 applied, Wellesley College was the last. However, it turned out to be the best school she got into, so she decided she would attend. She knew that even if she hated it she could transfer out after her first year but ended up staying for three years.
“My feelings [about Wellesley] changed over time and they still do,” Jaye said.
Growing up, Jaye was homeschooled. She and her seven adopted siblings learned through workbooks and took classes through the Florida Virtual School. She did a variety of activities including figure skating, writing and playing board games with her family.
“There were eight kids at home — we didn’t need much more community than that,” Jaye said.
Jaye worked in theater, played Quidditch, volunteered and participated in many other activities while at Wellesley. She ended up with a major in Classics, focusing on translation, and a minor in English. She considered other areas of study, such as theater, before making her final selections.
“I came in intending to be a Classics major and I left with a Classics major. Everything else changed,” Jaye said.
Jaye graduated a year early from Wellesley. From the beginning of her time in the college, she planned to graduate a semester early for financial reasons. After struggling to find her place sophomore year she decided to graduate a whole year early, which was not too difficult for her.
“I was very much happy to be done with Wellesley because it’s a stressful environment,” Jaye said. “It was really hard being around people who would be in the pressure cooker constantly which didn’t work for me. So while I appreciate the academics and I had so many wonderful friends at Wellesley, I don’t think the environment was the best for me because not everyone had the same approach to stressful situations that I did.”
Since graduating, Jaye has worked at Oracle Corporation, a computer technology company. There, she holds a position as a sales and market development representative. She spends her workday calling and emailing people to see if they will consider discussing possible business intelligence solutions that Oracle offers.
“I’m what they call a professional annoyance,” Jaye said.
Having a break from school has been very helpful for Jaye. She has learned to balance work with the classes she is taking at Harvard and her everyday needs. Her job allows her to pay off student loans as well as do things that she wants, such as travel.
“It was really good to go out into the corporate world and reassure myself that it was a place I wanted to be,” Jaye said.
Jaye is also applying to graduate schools, and hopes to be able to make her decision in the spring. She is applying to programs in culture and communication and is interested in the way that society retells stories.
“I’m only applying to programs that I could see myself being happy in,” Jaye said.
In the time since she has graduated, Jaye’s memories of Wellesley have grown more positive. Her current friends are Wellesley alums and the alumnae network has been very beneficial for her.
“Since leaving I’ve grown much fonder of the Wellesley community,” Jaye said. “The Harvard network is powerful; I think the Wellesley network is more powerful.”
In her free time, Jaye writes fiction, reads, plays video games and does a lot of exploring. She hopes to visit Wisconsin, as it is the only state that she has not yet been to. Right now her future is up in the air but she continues to push forward towards her goals.
“We have a saying in my family that you have to have a plan. It doesn’t matter how often the plan changes, but you have to have a plan and my plan right now is to work [at Oracle] until I figure out what my next plan is,” Jaye said.
