Growing up in Hollywood, Florida, Joanna Ruiz had ambitions for college — her sister, through the nonprofit college matching program QuestBridge, had gone to Stanford. But when it came time to think about possible destinations, she felt unsure about going out of state, and where she might find the right place. Then, as a high school junior, she went to QuestBridge’s college fair and heard a Yale admissions officer speak.
“Yale just felt like the most welcoming place,” said Ruiz. “The way they were engaging with us at the fair told me that they cared, and that Yale would be a good place for me to flourish.”
And in her four years here, she has — in her double major of music and American Studies; in her residential college, Jonathan Edwards (JE); and in her work across a broad range of organizations and activities on campus and beyond.
The common thread? Building, and uplifting, community.
“Coming in as a first-generation, low-income [FGLI] student, and with no one else here from my high school or city, I could sometimes feel alone,” said Ruiz. “But through the people I met at JE and the organizations I was a part of, it got way easier.”
She quickly threw herself into college life: she worked in her residential college’s buttery (a late-night snack bar); served on the college council; helped resurrect an old college tradition, the JE Tulip Princess; and founded a JE-specific affinity group for FGLI students.
Then she started a show on WYBC, the student-run radio station, which fostered a wider range of connections across campus and city. The station, which is open to New Haven residents as well as Yale students, gave her an opportunity to work closely with the local community. Ruiz produced live shows and interviews with local musicians and helped organize the station’s weekly Teen Takeovers, in which local high school students run their own shows and learn broadcasting skills.
Ruiz, foreground, at the WYBC radio station.
After rising through the ranks, this year she served as the station’s general manager, the top role in the organization.
Ruiz also wrote for the Yale Herald; worked in sound engineering at the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media; organized archival material for the Schwarzman Center; and was a Disability Peer Mentor with the Academic Strategies Program. And she served on the executive board of the Yale First-Generation, Low-Income Advocacy Movement (YFAM), and acted as the social chair of the Peruvian affinity club, Contigo Peru. For Ruiz, the child of Peruvian immigrants, the club helped her “feel close to home.”
She also stayed connected to home by working for the Yale undergraduate admissions office’s Yale Ambassadors program, in which current Yale College students visit high schools in their home communities.
“I found it really nice to be able to go back into my community and talk to the high schoolers about coming to Yale and help them realize that it was something that was possible,” she said. “I know I’m honored and privileged to be at Yale, and I want to make sure I’m not the last person from my school or my city to come here.”
Through her studies, Ruiz discovered another form of community-building: the public humanities, which focus on museum studies, documentary work, and public history.
For two years, she worked as an archival assistant for Yale’s Oral History of American Music project, transcribing interviews for the project’s extensive collections. (A highlight for Ruiz, a devoted Beatles fan: transcribing the interview that poet Paul Muldoon conducted with Paul McCartney in 2023 at Woolsey Hall.)
In the fall, she’ll pursue a master’s degree in library and information studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interest is in community archives — the preservation of histories and cultural production that might otherwise be overlooked.
More immediately, she’s looking forward to hosting her family on campus for commencement — showing them where she lived, studied, and found another home, especially at JE. “Every fun memory I’ve had at Yale has been with people who are in JE,” said Ruiz.
And during the commencement ceremony, she’ll perform one more service for her college: as its student marshal, she’ll accept a symbolic diploma from President Maurie McInnis on behalf of her peers.
“It’s very rewarding to know that the effort you put into making your residential college a welcoming and inclusive community does not go unnoticed,” Ruiz said. “It confirms my belief that the residential college life is one of the greatest experiences you can have at Yale.”
