Spring — 2005

Isabelle Aubrey

Science

“SMC has great support and professors. I’ve never been this successful at school or confident of my goals. It’s all been life-changing.”

You’d never know it from talking with her, but Isabelle Aubrey is from Paris. No, not the one in Texas. The other one. “It’s true! I have an American accent! But that’s because I cheated,” she says with a laugh. “I grew up in New York.” But Isabelle returned to France for her diploma, and then decided to come to LA—at the age of 20 and on her own—to pursue her passion: acting. And she calls it “a very good move,” though not for the reasons she expected.

“I got married and started a family, and I’ve been at SMC for three years,” she reports. “ I’m hoping to transfer to UCLA as a Psychobiology major and then become a doctor, an OB/GYN. I really didn’t get the support I needed in France when I was studying, so I dropped out. But when I got to SMC, all that changed,” she says. “I was getting such great grades and having such a good time that I thought, ‘Why don’t you just go for the dream you’ve always had? Medicine!’” At SMC, Isabelle reports, “I’ve had nothing but support here. My chemistry teacher, Mrs. Walker-Waugh, taught me to explore my limits and made me realize I could achieve more than I ever thought I could. She really pushed me, and it was ‘tough love,’” recalls Isabelle. “But whenever I felt I couldn’t go on, she was right there at my shoulder saying, ‘Come on, Isabelle. You can do it. You can make it!’”

“Now, when I walk on campus,” Isabelle states, “I feel the empowerment here. I feel definitely dynamic and actually like a veteran,” she says with a laugh. “And I think the way to get the most ‘juice’ out of SMC is to interact with your professors whenever you can. They’re very accessible and… I mean, we’re spoiled at SMC—which freaks me out a little about where I’ll be in the future—because here, at SMC, students are definitely taken care of.”

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