Zoe Green | Student

Spiritual Self-Discovery

Growing up in a military family, Zoe Green ’27 became accustomed to transition at a young age. Having already moved from California to North Carolina to Indiana, she arrived at DePauw eager to find a community and make the most of every moment. “I’m here for four years,” she says, “and that’s as long as I’ve been in a single school.”

Green is proud of what she’s accomplished during that time. As a biochemistry major with a minor in political science, she’s using her academic foundation to prepare for a future career in medicine — ideally in the field of pediatrics. In addition to the rigorous coursework and the personalized support she’s received from her professors, she has enjoyed the opportunity to extend her preparation beyond the classroom, including a recent internship at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. “It was an amazing experience,” she says. “I worked in the heart center and went through all the different subspecialties of cardiology. It took a good two or three weeks to find my footing, but I learned so much.”

Green is also a student-athlete, having competed throughout her DePauw career as a member of the women’s swimming and diving team. Although time at the pool can be exhausting and demanding, she appreciates the structure and discipline the sport has given her. “I’m so much more focused in season than out of season,” she explains. “My coaches push us to do well academically. We have meetings if we’re doing well by mid-term, and they’re very focused on the fact that each one of us is here to be a student.”

But academics and athletics aren’t the only areas in which Green has found her niche at DePauw. She’s also found a meaningful home in DePauw’s Hillel organization, a Jewish community on campus where she’s been able to connect with an important part of her family heritage and nurture an important part of her personal identity.

“This has come at a great time,” she says. “Right now is the perfect moment to discover what my values are and to mature with those values closely in front of me. I think it’s been very helpful in developing who I am.”

As Hillel’s president, Green is working hard to increase student involvement in the group and help it rebound from the post-pandemic setback that so many student organizations on campus experienced. She’s planning events, collaborating with other organizations and working closely with the staff at the Center for Spiritual Life. Ultimately, she hopes her work can pave the way for others to discover a deep sense of community and purpose, just like she has.

“People have so many different experiences with being called Jewish. That identity has so many different meanings. So it's cool to see how those experiences cross over each other when you're in a setting where that is a focus — exploring that identity and growing in it. I've learned so much more about my culture and my religion just from being around these people that have been practicing this their whole lives.”

In the end, Green has a simple way of describing the responsibility she feels to her fellow Jewish students — both present and future: “I just want to leave it better than I found it.”