The fifth circuit covers New Orleans, where Cortez was born and went to high school. In between those two events, her teacher parents settled in states across the US, from the deep South to San Francisco. What remained fixed throughout every move was Cortez’s love of physics, and with crafting scientific arguments out of rules and axioms. This focus shifted, however, once she was exposed to the liberal arts.
“At Bowdoin, I realized I didn’t want to work in abstracts,” she said. “Law is similar to physics but it is based in precedent instead of theory, making room for interpretation.” After the presidential election, Cortez realized she wanted to dedicate her career to helping make change happen, not just thinking behind a closed door. She is now a math and history double major and dreams of working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that fights against discrimination and bigotry with litigation, education, and advocacy.
Ida Cortez ’18 at the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans
The Bowdoin logs come out after Dighton Spooner, a career-planning advisor, brought everyone to focus and invited students to share with the room what they did with their grant.
Cortez was the last to stand up and talk, after Ruilin Yang ’20 spoke about the venture capital accelerator she worked at in Shanghai and Taipei, and Ben Painter ’19 shared stories from his time delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Czech relief fund across earthquake-struck regions of Nepal.
Ben Painter ’19 interned for People in Need Nepal & Axium Education
Cortez lit up as she talked about Judge Fredericka Wicker and the personal guidance the judge gave her. As a side project atop normal intern duties, she researched disability education practices in Louisiana.
Career Planning’s email invitation for the event warned no one to prepare a speech, but each student’s enthusiasm came through the eloquence of their answers to what is usually an obligatory small-talk prompt: “What did you do last summer?”
2017 Career Planning Funded Internship Recipients
- Ava Alexander ’18: Early Childhood Cognition Lab, University of Washington, Seattle WA
- Maurice Asare ’19: Innocence Project, New York, NY
- Anuoluwapo Asaolu ’19: Bellevue Hospital, New York, NY
- Sydney Avitia-Jacques ’18: Environmental Health Strategy Center / Prevent Harm, Portland, ME
- Anna Blaustein ’19: St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, Lewiston, ME
- Charlotte Borden ’19″ Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center, Belfast, ME
- Miles Brautigam ’19: Space Gallery, Portland, ME
- William Britton ’18: Bellevue Hospital, New York, NY
- Max Byron ’19: Planned Parenthood of New England, Portland, ME
- Kevin Cheng ’19: Cultural Survival, Cambridge, MA
- Ida Cortez ’20: Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal, State of Louisiana, Gretna, LA
- Luca DeAngelis ’20: American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, Portland, ME
- Christopher De Los Angeles Avina ’19: Northwoods Wildlife Center, Minocqua, WI
- Camille Farradas ’19: Artnet Worldwide Corporation, New York, NY
- Augustus Gilchrist ’20: Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Republic of Georgia
- Elena Gleed ’18
: HIAS Refuge Organization, Silver Spring, MD - Alexa Grey ’19: Maine Volunteer Lawyer’s Project, Portland, ME
- Catherine Hanson ’19: YSC Sports Marketing, Wayne, PA
- Carlos Holguin ’19: Child, Youth, Office of the Chief Social Worker N.Z., Wellington, New Zealand
- Darlene Ineza ’19: Partners in Health, Rwanda
- Jeff Joseph ’19: Harvard School of Public Health and Bowdoin Department of Mathematics, Boston, MA
- Ryan Keefe ’18: Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Chestnut Hill, MA
- Madeleine King ’19: Cultivating Community, Lisbon, ME
- Samuel Kyzivat ’18: Maine Youth Orchestra, Portland, ME
- Marshall
Lanrum ’18: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN - Swapnika Mallipeddi ’19: Abhyasa Vidyalayam: Deepa Memorial Charitable Trust, Andhra Pradesh, India
- Elizabeth Miller ’18: The National Marine Life Center, Buzzards Bay, MA
- Surya Milner ’19: The Times Record, Brunswick, ME
- Daniel Miro-
Chinea ’19: Gulf Coast Legal Services, St. Petersburg, FL - Emilie Montgomery ’18: The BOMA Project,
Nanjuki , Kenya - Francis Navarro ’19: Dentons Munoz,
Guatamala City,Guatamala - Martinique Ogle ’18: Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
- Oluwatobi
Omola ’19: Warner Music Group, New York, NY - Ben Painter ’19: People in Need Nepal & Axium Education, Nepal & South Africa
- Mathew Pascale ’18: Office of Congressman Patrick Meehan, Washington, DC
- Amanda Perkins ’18: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, South Hamilton, MA
- Claire Phillips ’19: Consortium for Energy Efficiency, Boston, MA
- Dana Pierce ’19: The Department of Astronomy at Columbia University, New York, NY
- Ellis Price ’19: Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook, ME
- Ezra Rice ’19: Office of United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Washington, DC
- Theo Richards ’19: Southwark Brewery, London, England
- Emily Ruby ’19: Democratic National Committee, Washington, DC
- Raquel Santizo ’19: The Representation Project, San Francisco, CA
- Mackenzie Schaffer ’19: Soluciones Generales de Ingeniería S.L., Zaragoza, Spain
- Jacob Stein ’19: Poin, Inc., New York, NY
- Cordelia Stewart ’19: Pure Water for the World, Inc., Rutland, VT
- Ben Torda ’18: Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
- Ruilin Yang ’20: SOSV (Chinaccelerator), Shanghai, China
- James Young ’20: Harlem Lacrosse, Boston, MA
- Senay Yibrah ’19: Year Up, Boston, MA
