#MeettheACLPTeam: Christine Oliva

By: Amy Xiang

Most of us can agree that summer 2020 hasn’t exactly turned out how we expected. For ACLP Social Media Manager Christine Oliva, quarantine has meant lots of Netflix, Animal Crossing, and Chloe Ting workout challenges.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Christine now lives 10 minutes away from the city in a suburb called Skokie. She lives with her younger sister, a junior at Northwestern University, and her mom, a nursing assistant in a rehabilitation center.

“Growing up, my parents always stressed the importance of an education, so ever since I was young, I always tried my best in school and strived to get into college. But they also taught me the importance of balancing school with friendships and family,” Christine said.

Christine, now a senior at Penn, is studying nursing and minoring in nursing and health services management. She cites her experiences with volunteering and learning about empathy as the reasons why she is pursuing this career path.

At Penn, Christine is part of the Asian Pacific American Nursing Student Association, or APANSA for short, where she has been both a general member and marketing chair. Christine is also heavily involved with the Penn Phillippine Association and she is preparing to serve as the executive vice president starting in the Fall 2020 semester.

As for the future, Christine has a pretty solid idea of what her next five years will look like. After graduating from Penn, she plans to work in Philly for a year before starting her master’s program; in fact, she has already been accepted to Penn Nursing’s submatriculation program, where she hopes to study adult gerontology acute care and finally become a nurse practitioner.

Christine’s involvement with ACLP began in summer 2020, as she was searching for a fun and meaningful work-study job to keep her busy.

“I hadn’t been involved in a lot of community engagement at Penn, so I thought it would be really cool to spend my senior year giving back to the Philly community and helping any way I can,” Christine said.

Christine added that she is excited to be creating a social media account from scratch, as this is something she is interested in but has never had the opportunity to do before. The first step? Doing research on how to build audience engagement on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

And to our wonderful ACLP Future Scholars, Christine shared some words of advice:

“It’s important to believe in yourself and what you can do. Don’t be afraid to try something new because you can learn a lot from the experience. A lot of the memories I’ve made and growth I’ve experienced so far was because I was willing to try new things to pursue my goals.”