Today we’d like to introduce you to Simone Trevas.
Simone, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I took a class my senior year of high school called “Bio-Engineering and World Health” and that is when I was first introduced to public health and became intrigued by it. I took more public health courses at the University of Houston (UH) which ultimately grew my passion for the field. While at UH, I was given the opportunity to travel to India for three weeks to teach children in villages about the importance of clean water as well as how to properly brush their teeth. I also taught students life lessons such as how to acquire leadership skills and how to manage one’s time wisely. After graduating UH with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health, I became a Road Warrior with Thirst Project, the world’s largest youth water organization whose mission is to end the global water crisis. This internship afforded me the experience of driving across the country (from Los Angeles to West Virginia) with a work partner for 11 weeks. We educated students about the global water crisis and challenged them to start fundraisers at their schools so they could aid Thirst Project in building fresh water wells in developing countries. Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) in Southern Africa is one of the countries that Thirst Project focuses its efforts on. Shortly after returning home from the internship with Thirst Project, I started graduate school at UTHealth-School of Public Health where I am planning on earning my Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a focus on Epidemiology (which is basically like being a disease detective). This is my first semester at UTHealth-School of Public Health and I am excited to see where my career path takes me.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has most certainly not been a smooth road getting to where I am today. First of all, I have been dancing since I was about four years old and I was planning on pursuing it as a career up until the second half of my Freshman year of college. After putting a lot of thought into it and deciding that I wanted to pursue something in public health as a career instead of dance, I changed dance to my minor instead of my major. One of the biggest challenges I faced was navigating how to prioritize public health while still actively dancing (after all, dance was a significant part of my life for 15 years). I joined the UH Dance Ensemble and performed in as many dances as I could while still being able keep up with my public health and general education coursework. In addition, the requirements for being a dance minor entailed a heavy workload in terms of taking technique classes and dance composition classes (where you learn how to choreograph dances). Having to balance dance classes, rehearsals, and academic classes were obstacles but I overcame them because I was so determined to keep both dance and public health in my life. My advice to other young women who are just starting their journey is to not let someone tell you that you have to pick one passion or interest over another. I believe that if you want it badly enough, you can be successful in pursuing more than one passion. The key to being able to juggle multiple passions or interests is to know how to manage your time and to not spend too much time on one over the other.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
My personal brand is that of a public health advocate, dancer, and amateur stand up comedian. What sets me apart from others is not only those fields combined in themselves but also the fact that I have dedicated a lot of time to making sure my life is full of all three of them. I am only planning on pursuing public health as a career, but dancing and stand up comedy are both passions of mine that I want to keep exploring for as long as I can. I mentioned dancing earlier, but I failed to mention how my passion for stand up comedy came to be. My dad was a professional stand up comedian for a few years in Houston, and I became interested in it because of him. I attended several open mics in Houston where I just observed comics and what jokes were getting laughs and which weren’t. I believe that one of the best forms of learning is to observe others and so I learned a lot from those experiences. I eventually decided to start writing my own jokes and performing them at open mic nights. I love the feeling I get when I make people laugh and I have met some inspiring people in the field.
Do you have a lesson or advice you’d like to share with young women just starting out?
The most important piece of advice I can give to a young woman just starting her career is to be persistent. There will inevitably be setbacks in getting to your goal, but don’t let that put out your fire because you will never know how successful you will be if you don’t keep trying to get to where you want to be. Your hard work will pay off in the long run, even if that means failing and starting again multiple times.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 832-331-0972
- Email: sgtrevas@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilsimmy97/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simmy0216
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