Pursuing Their Passions: Class of 2023

Meet a handful of members from our very eclectic and accomplished Class of 2023. This year's class includes 1,396 students from 44 states and 65 countries and were selected from a record 21,300 applicants. The Eastman School of Music welcomed 130 first-year students from 35 states and eight countries.

James Bantayou comes to Rochester from Boca Raton, Florida after being recruited to play football. After the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, just miles from his home, he was inspired to get involved in local government and study political science, seeking solutions for gun violence.

Sanaa Finley is a self-taught drummer from Ocean, New Jersey. She says she started playing when her mother bought her a drum kit at age five, and learned everything she knows by ear and later in marching band. Her interest in technology led her to combine those two passions and study audio and music engineering, and that Rochester provided just the right balance to pursue both.

Fernanda Sesto attended a high school in her native Uruguay that specialized in computer science, one of only three female students in the school. She came to Rochester to continue that path and wants to inspire other women to pursue technology fields. She also wants to continue her outreach to communities that lack technology, as she had done before college by starting a non-profit that teaches computer science to children from low-income families.

Jafrè Chase comes to the Eastman School of Music to continue his studies in viola, a passion he has pursued since fourth grade. He previously studied at the Baltimore School of the Arts, and decided to forego opportunities to study at conservatories closer to his hometown and come to Rochester. After enduring financial hardships in his family, where they even found themselves homeless for nearly a year, Jafrè points the supportive community at Eastman as being a key factor in that decision. He says they teach not just how to play at high level, but how to take care of your whole self.

Siera Sadowski traveled to Rochester from Texas, but thinks of nearby Buffalo as her hometown, despite many moves during her childhood as her father sought work as an independent contractor. She says that it has always been her dream to attend college, and the Handler scholarship, which provides full tuition to students with significant financial need, made it possible for her to be the first in her family to do so. During a gap year following high school, she taught English in Ecuador, where she was inspired to enroll as a GRADE Scholar, a five year program at the University allowing students to get both a bachelor's degree and then a master's at the Warner School of Education. She hopes to use that knowledge to work on reforming troubled schools.

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