When Sofia Rodriguez Baquero was in high school, she sunk her teeth into a media literacy class called “New Media Lit.” Students produced videos and appeared in programs that were broadcast, launching her early education in journalism.

Most of all, she remembers how her teacher dealt with students. Regardless of the kind of day the students were having, Rodriguez Baquero recalls an instructor who inspired them.

“I loved the way he talked about media, whether news or movies — he made everyone feel very open to sharing,” Rodriguez Baquero says. “He definitely changed the trajectory of my life.”

The experience sparked in her a curiosity about how to get others excited and engaged with learning. And as she graduates from the Clark Honors College with a degree in journalism and minors in science communication and sustainable business, she is eager to have a career as an educator in the future.

“I didn’t love the idea of going to school my entire life and then turning around and teaching other people,” she says, acknowledging that her teaching career likely will happen later in life. “I feel like I wouldn’t have the life experience that I would want.”

This summer, she’ll move across the country to New York City to serve as an executive communications associate at ServiceNow, an enterprise software company. And in the future, she sees herself gravitating to jobs in climate work or corporate sustainability. She also has an interest in working for a publication that specializes in environmental journalism.

Her time at the Honors College, she says, has helped her become an effective communicator, regardless of the topic. “It adds so much more depth to the way that I’m able to interact with other people and come into conversations about tech,” she says. “It really taught me that I don’t know everything, and how to be OK with that.”

Rodriguez Baquero’s dad worked for Facebook during what she refers to as the “peak Facebook years.” She used to visit him at his workplace, taking in all that the massive headquarters of the tech giant offered. She remembers being impressed at first, but she became wary of the tech industry over time. “The offices are their own neighborhood. If they have showers and free food, that means they’re gonna have their employees there from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” she remembers thinking.

She carried that wariness with her when she started an internship last summer with ServiceNow. “I thought I was going to be a cog in a corporate machine,” she says. But her cynicism shifted to optimism when she recognized the ways technology can help others.

“I ended up loving it. My team and my manager were incredible, and it changed the way that I looked at having a corporate job,” she says. “There’s a lot of good that can be done with technology — it’s easy for one of these big companies to make a lot of positive change with one small thing.”

Her performance led to a job offer this summer, and she’s excited to get started. She expects that her main task will be helping communicate to customers about software products in a concise way. “Let’s say there’s a new product release. What do these software updates actually mean? It’s finding language that makes sense to the average person,” she says.

Making things make sense to others is Rodriguez Baquero’s way of promoting understanding. And she practices what she preaches. She grew up without a good understanding of money and finance, so she sought to learn everything she could about it.

“As a kid, I was deeply anxious about money for truly no reason,” she recalls. “There’s nothing my parents did to make me think that way, but I was just convinced it was a problem.”

She remembers going to restaurants and picking something that she didn’t want, just because it was 25 cents cheaper. “I was convinced I had to save my family’s money,” she says.

When she started working in high school, she saved whatever money she could. “I’m still frugal now,” she says. But over time, questions about finance became less of a point of anxiety and more of an area of inquiry.

Discussions with parents and a handful of YouTube videos provided her with the groundwork to understand fiscal complexities. “I spent a lot of time asking people who were smarter than me questions,” she says. When she turned 18, she began investing, and upon arriving at the Honors College, she started discussing personal finance and the importance of saving with her friends.

She remembers how her friends reacted when she first talked to them. “They were like, ‘What? We have $200 in our savings accounts.’ So, I said: ‘Hey, that’s so real. That makes so much sense. Do you guys want to learn?’”

She approached the topic with understanding, never judgment. She brought up potential ways to save and explained how investing works. “I didn’t realize it was an option to have been taught these things,” she says.

She has found ways to help people overcome the same financial anxieties she experienced as a child. “I’m better off because of that anxiety, but I also don’t want other people to feel it, and I don’t think I should have.”

In her thesis, “Robux IRL: How Games Can Create a Positive Impact on Children's Development of Financial Literacy,” she created a guide for parents to help their children understand how to handle currency in the popular online game, Roblox. The in-game currency, Robux, can be purchased with real money.

“I've heard all these horror stories of kids stealing their parents’ credit cards and spending thousands of dollars on Robux,” she says. “It morphed into being able to show how it is a good thing that children are exposed to this kind of economy and are functioning within it.”

Helping friends and acquaintances with personal finance helped Rodriguez Baquero get a position as a peer financial wellness coach at the University of Oregon Financial Wellness Center, a role she has held for the past two years.

She organizes events and workshops to make financial literacy approachable. “Whenever somebody comes in, she’s very laid back and comfortable,” says Tennille Wait, assistant director for the Financial Wellness Center. “She’s very open to helping people learn through her experiences. She connects with people through storytelling, and teaches through storytelling.”

Rodriguez Baquero’s storytelling also shows up in her food and cooking, something that has always been deeply important to her family. She remembers as a kid sitting at the kitchen counter as a kid, helping chop ingredients for dinner.

With parents from Puerto Rico, much of the food her family makes tells stories from their home. “My mom, aunts, grandma and I all live in different parts of California,” she says. “Once or twice a year, we’ll all get together to make alcapurrias, which are deep-fried masa filled with ground beef.”

Her mother, Elena Baquero, recalls how her daughter turned most school projects into food-related lessons. “She would combine food with learning, and the emotional connection that food has to memories,” Baquero says. “She’s always had a way of storytelling, of considering all the different perspectives and not just jumping to conclusions. That definitely serves her well as a journalist.”

She defended her thesis successfully last fall and has spent much of her time working as the photo editor for Flux Magazine, the student-produced publication of the School of Journalism and Communication. As she prepares for her move to New York, Rodriguez Baquero plans to spend time at her California home, cooking and getting ready for her new career.

One of her priorities? Committing a number of family recipes to memory. “I’m definitely going to be taking notes,” she says. “I need to be able to make this when I’m in New York without my family — then I’ll be able to teach my friends.” 

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