Week 7: Meet Siya Yinti :)

Hello everyone! For my blog post this week, I interviewed one of my fellow 2023 DCERP cohort members: Siya! We had a nice conversation in the courtyard outside of our apartment building where we’re staying this summer. I hope you enjoy learning more about her as much as I did!

Siya is a rising sophomore from Connecticut and plans to apply to/study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE at U-M) or Public Policy. A fun fact about her is that she is on a classical Indian dance team (Michigan Mayuri) and loves to dance!

Here is a list of some more things that Siya loves:

• Korean food
• Monkeys
• Coca-cola
• Family & friends
• Love
• The color pink
• Rain
• Sleeping
• Indian music
• BTS
• Boba tea
• Painting
• Sushi

I asked Siya about what are some of her plans or dreams for her future, and after a shared laugh about “How are we supposed to know right now??,” she said that she wants to go to law school and eventually work in humanitarian aid. She also wants a dog or a cat and wants to travel to Singapore; she has always loved the food and the culture there.

I asked her if she had a microphone and a platform and could broadcast one sentence to the world, what would it be? She responded, “Get your money up, not your funny up.” To her, this means that you should keep working towards your goals and not let anything, like the words of others or barriers, get in the way of them. Which is so true!!

Her favorite spot on the U-M campus freshman year was Markley Hall, where she lived and made some of her best memories with her friends there. Her favorite spot in Detroit that she has explored so far has been the Eastern Market!

If Siya was a soup, she would be a miso soup.

As it relates to DCERP and her community site/project, Siya is looking forward to seeing everyone’s presentations and the final products of our summer at the showcase in August. I asked her if she had any fun facts about her site, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, and she told me that every event they plan is free for the public, they own and manage the parks in Downtown Detroit, and she got to go to a Tigers baseball game with her work!

I have loved getting to know Siya and laughing with her this summer (especially as she freaked out seeing Khalid open for Ed Sheeran last week.)

Thanks for reading! 🙂