About Me

I was born on October 30th, 1987 in Botosani, Romania, I had been orphaned at an early age and was in an orphanage for most of my life until I was adopted at the age of 3 1/2 by my parents, John and Kathy Spiro. I have lived in the Washington, DC area since, mostly in Gaithersburg, MD. I was Home-Schooled for my entire K-12 schooling and I am currently attending Montgomery College, Germantown Campus where I am working towards a double major in History and Political Science,

I came to Montgomery College as a high school student (home schooled) and my desire is to double major in political science and history at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County (UMBC). Someday I hope to be able to teach history and/or government at a high school or community college similar to Montgomery College. Since my arrival at Montgomery College in the fall of 2005, I have been able to use the leadership skills that I’ve learned and push myself to my limits. In my first semester at Montgomery College, I was encouraged to take some small steps to test my leadership capacities, and in November of 2005, I was asked to attend the American College Union International Region 4 conference, which was being hosted at West Virginia University (WVU).

I learned a lot from that first experience both in the conference sessions and through my observations of WVU, and I have had the opportunity to become involved in other things on campus. In May of 2006, I was appointed to the Germantown Student Senate as the special events chair. My job was to take events on campus and then add a little extra flair to it. One example was our Alcohol Awareness event where I was able to get a wrecked car from the Montgomery Police Department and have it displayed on campus. This was in conjunction with creating several alcohol information posters, which I placed around campus. However, my greatest accomplishment on the Student Senate was my “Get out to Vote – Candidate Forum” where I was able to host over 20 candidates on the Germantown Campus. These candidates included Chuck Floyd (County Council Executive), former State Senator Patrick J. Hogan, Gaithersburg City Council Member Henry Marraffa, and many others. This forum taught me how to run a major event and allowed me to building my own interpersonal skills. I was reappointed to the Student Senate in August of 2007 as the Member at Large. This year, I have worked mostly on campus-wide initiatives, but I have not forgotten about my home campus. I have worked on three International Nights (April 2007, November 2007, and April 2008), several collection campaigns (toy, food, etc) and have run many events like Fun Friday. Overall, I learned a lot from being on the Student Senate, and my experience on the senate has allowed me to work in other positions both on campus and college-wide.

Through my work on the Senate, I was asked to be the student representative for the Middle States Self-Assessment Steering Committee. My job was to inform students of what was happening and work to get students involved throughout the entire program. I also had the opportunity to go to the steering committee meetings where I was able to evaluate initiatives and ideas through student eyes. Since I was the only student to be around for the second year, I was asked to become the main student representative for the group and help distribute important news and ideas to students at all three campuses. Being in this committee also helped place me into other college-wide committees such as the Presidential Inauguration Planning Committee, MyMC Advisory Committee, and the Learning College Leadership Summits. Montgomery College has been working on becoming a “Learning College” and has sponsored several leadership summits where students from all three campuses are invited to come to meet together and be taught many important leadership skills, listen to speakers talk about important issues concerning Montgomery College, and give their input on college-wide initiatives. I have personally been to all of these summits, have seen them progress and evolve, and helped plan several summits. I am currently working with Ms. Debi Higbie-Holmes (Director of the Office of Student Life at Germantown) on completely taking charge of the next summit scheduled for October of 2008.

Nevertheless, Germantown is still my home campus, and I have had the great opportunity to participate in several key positions on the campus. The First Year Experience program at Germantown has a special component called Student Ambassadors. These ambassadors are paired with a College Survival class and act as a student assistant for the teacher. I have been in this program since the beginning (two years) and it has been a great experience. Another campus committee I’ve been a part of has been the disciplinary committee; the cases that I have helped adjudicate ranged from minor infractions to some major breaches of the Student Code of Conduct. There are other groups, committees, and events that I have been a part of that have helped me grow as a leader and as a responsible adult.

"History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity"
-Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)