March 25, 2025
Each year, teachers and staff at BASIS Independent McLean watch with pride as our graduating class spread their wings, ready to soar in the next chapter of their lives. This month, we are excited to launch a new blog series featuring our alumni, whose diverse experiences in college and beyond showcase what they’ve carved after leaving BIM. First up, we have Paloma M., Class of 2024, whose contributions as an active journalist of the student-run newspaper The BIM Bulletin left a lasting impact on the high school publications program.
Dr. Pittman, the lead teacher of the Journalism class and founding faculty advisor of The BIM Bulletin, provides her reflections on Paloma:
“For BIM Bulletin, Paloma reported stories about policies affecting students in high school and served as a managing editor, tirelessly reading each reporter’s contributions and offering feedback on their ideas. She also developed excellent skills in navigating the website platform, providing the newspaper staff with technical support.
“In order to establish the library for the Upper School, Paloma coordinated meetings with school leadership to discuss the mission, developed the circulation platform and the volunteer system, and spearheaded the collections and the catalogue system used to track book circulation.
“Paloma’s contributions were integral to the growth and development of these two institutions in the high school program.”
Building on her passion for reporting and writing, Paloma is now pursuing a double major in Journalism and Wildlife and Fisheries Science at Pennsylvania State University. Below, Paloma shares insights about her college experience and how her time at BIM influenced her journey after graduation.
What do you love most about your college (Penn State)?
The opportunities! There is just so much happening all the time that you can get involved in, especially at such a big school like Penn State. It feels like it doesn’t matter how niche your hobbies are, someone will want to do them with you, and everyone just wants to hang out and make connections!
How did your time at BIM prepare you for college life? Is there anything you wish you’d been better prepared for?
BIM helped me figure out what study strategies worked and how to manage my time earlier than many of my college classmates, and it was a lifesaver in many ways. While most freshmen around me struggled to manage their time during their first semester, I was breezing through it and signing up for clubs, making sure to explore what I wanted to do. I would say that being away from my old BIM friends was initially challenging. However, when I realized I needed to adapt to a new social circle, I quickly opened myself up to more opportunities to make friends.
What’s been the best part of living in your dorm or on your own? Share your experience!
I live in a double dorm with one other person. I would say, generally, living in a dorm is fun! All of my friends live with me, and it makes things like hanging out so much easier! Roommate troubles can be complicated, though, and my best advice when running into that is to just go with your gut.
Have you participated in any internships, research, or other professional activities? Tell us about them!
I’m involved in the Daily Collegian, Penn State’s independently run student paper, and TEDxPSU, Penn State’s TEDx event! I’m a news reporter for the Collegian, which means a lot of running around campus for random updates. However, it’s always fun to meet people and attend events I would otherwise not have access to! TEDxPSU is also fun since I do both media and speaker prep for them. In other words, I publish social media posts, and I have an assigned speaker whose speech I help develop. I love connecting with speakers who come with unique backgrounds, voices, and personalities and working side by side with students who have the same passions as me!
What advice would you give to current BIM students?
Go with the flow! College is about figuring things out, so stop worrying about being perfect and just let yourself explore whatever you feel comfortable with! Make new friends, join new clubs, figure out your passions, change your major twenty-five different times (true story: someone at Penn State did this), mess up and learn, and then mess up again because humans aren’t perfect, but we’ll always learn and evolve. Just go for it!
A special thank you to Paloma for sharing her insights into college life after BASIS Independent McLean!
The Alumni Voice is a blog series that explores the post-high school experience for our BIM graduates. We believe that a lasting partnership with our alumni is integral to the continued success and growth of our community. Stay tuned for our next blog of the series, coming up soon!