“It felt like home,” McAree said of Scheller. She started her first year as a business administration major and has stayed with it, concentrating in operations and supply chain management.

McAree was involved outside of the classroom, too. She was a member of Relay for Life, the Society of Women in Business, and Zeta Tau Alpha, and she worked as a peer advisor for the Office of International Education after studying abroad with the Oxford program.

But one experience stands out above the rest.

In the spring of 2018, McAree traveled to Sass Mack-Satem, Senegal, with the Collegiate Panhellenic Council (CPC) and the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation. There, she, 14 other Tech students, and three faculty advisors helped construct a permanent school for the rural community. Previously, the people of Sass Mack-Satem had to build a makeshift structure each year with whatever materials remained after the harvest. The CPC and Circle of Sisterhood raised almost $40,000 that, when combined with the community’s resources, enabled them to build a sturdy cement structure and latrine.

“It was absolutely the school that the community deserved and a really great experience overall,” McAree said. The school now serves approximately 50 students, at least half of whom are girls.

This experience helped reshape McAree’s interests, from general educational reform to improving education for women and girls. Though she still recognizes the many serious issues facing American education today, her travels abroad have led her to look at it from a global perspective — she now views the lack of education for women and girls as a significant problem around the world.

McAree will be moving to New York City after graduation to work as a consultant with Accenture. While she won’t be working in education specifically, she plans on working with organizations such as Kiva, which allows people to sponsor female entrepreneurs overseas.

Her biggest piece of advice for students who are passionate about social issues is to find others who share that passion and get involved. She believes it’s important for students to keep learning more about what they’re interested in and keep talking about it with others.

Before she graduates, McAree still has a few things that she wants to do on campus, including eating a meal in a dining hall — something she hasn’t done since the end of her first year.

“I think I’ve done a lot of the other things that I wanted to do, though,” McAree said. “I have no regrets.”