{"id":11083,"date":"2015-08-13T08:51:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T13:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=11083"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:07:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:07:54","slug":"finding-a-niche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=11083","title":{"rendered":"Finding a niche"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Carlos<\/a>
Carlos Perez-Heydrich is among the 4,000 incoming first-year students who will arrive on campus this weekend. A biology major from Miami, Perez-Heydrich is looking to push himself out of his comfort zone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where Carlos Perez-Heydrich grew up, everybody knew everybody.<\/p>\n

No matter where Perez-Heydrich went in the Cuban communities of Miami, somebody knew his name. So when it came time to pick a college, he didn\u2019t want to follow his family\u2019s familiar footsteps and stay in South Florida.<\/p>\n

Instead, the first-generation American wanted to create his own path. So he headed north.<\/p>\n

Pushing himself out of his comfort zone, Perez-Heydrich will be joining the more than 4,000 incoming first-year students arriving at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of knew that if I really wanted to develop into the best person I could be, I had to go someplace where nobody knew my name,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a good stepping stone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez-Heydrich\u2019s step out will be more than 800 miles from where his family established its roots. When his parents were babies, their families were exiled from Cuba, \u201cand had to re-form their lives in Miami.<\/p>\n

There, his father grew up to be an architect and his mother an accountant. They never moved from South Florida, living in a close-knit community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love everything I had in Miami, but I wanted to see who I am,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t know you, they knew your bother. If they didn\u2019t know your brother, they knew your sister. Everybody knew each other. I really wanted to find out who I am before I go back to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to know I am the way I am because it\u2019s me. I want to have my own history.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his quest to create his own path, Perez-Heydrich visited Chapel Hill for six weeks earlier this summer to partake in the annual Chancellor Science Scholars program<\/a>, which will help him get a head start on science and math as he pursues a biology<\/a> major in the College of Arts and Sciences.<\/a><\/p>\n

With his sights already set on graduate school, Perez-Heydrich is interested in both research and the medical professions, and he is uncertain in which field he\u2019ll ultimately pursue<\/p>\n

For now, he is focused on first finding his place at Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be finding my niche in this big place,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe everybody doesn\u2019t need to know my name, but I just need to have people who care about me and find that myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Brandon Bieltz, UNC Office of Communications and Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

This story is part of the \u201cNew Year, New Faces\u201d series. As UNC-Chapel Hill prepares to begin a new fall semester, UNC Communications profiles some of the new Tar Heels who will be looking to innovate, educate, serve \u2013 and change the world<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No matter where Carlos Perez-Heydrich went in the Cuban communities of Miami, somebody knew his name. So when it came time to pick a college, he didn\u2019t want to follow his family\u2019s familiar footsteps and stay in South Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-global-programs","category-natural-sciences-mathematics","category-undergraduate-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47329,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11083\/revisions\/47329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}