An education grounded in what it means to be human
Mayan Caplan ’25 shares how she made connections at è˶Ƶ: “It’s not just that everyone is really open and willing to connect; it’s that everyone is dazzlingly interesting, and I want to be in community with them.”
Like many members of the class of 2025, Mayan Caplan’s senior year of high school happened in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her Denver high school had fully remote classes, and college visits were also remote. While Caplan felt closer than ever to her family, especially her brother — the two sat together all day taking online classes — social distancing meant she’d missed spending her senior year with her high school friends.
Then, in the chat of a virtual accepted-student event, something unexpected happened. Caplan connected with another prospective è˶Ƶ College student. Even better, they both lived in Denver. She noticed something else when she scrolled through the entire event’s chat — she wasn’t the only one who had connected with someone. “It seemed that a lot of people were making genuine connections with each other in the chat during that whole meeting,” she said.
Arriving on campus, Caplan’s intuition about è˶Ƶ being a place for profound connection turned out to be correct. She ended up rooming with Devin, the prospective student she’d bonded with online, and they’re still roommates four years later.
Another bit of serendipitous connection: The very first person she met on campus was someone she ended up dating. She believes there’s a reason that every new connection felt so special. “It’s not just that everyone is really open and willing to connect; it’s that everyone is dazzlingly interesting, and I want to be in community with them,” she said.
Equally interesting were all the course options, so much so that Caplan had to be extremely analytical in choosing a major. She knew she wanted to be on the pre-med track. While many pre-med students choose majors in science, technology, engineering and math, Caplan pursued a humanities major to complement the biology, chemistry and math she’d need to take to fulfill the pre-med requirements.
“Medical school is all memorization, so I felt there was a lot to gain from using college to learn how people work, how to relate to people [and] the amazing diversity of human cultures,” she said.
However, deciding which humanities degree to declare was such a challenge for Caplan that, two days before declarations were due, she surveyed the course catalog and tallied which major had the most must-take classes. History won. “I am so grateful for that decision,” she said, adding that understanding how American institutions were formed has helped her understand that society and institutions are dynamic places — and with a little effort, they’re capable of change.
“I would like to go into public policy through the route of being a doctor to try and impact the American health system from the inside,” she said. The summer after her sophomore year, with the help of The Lynk initiative, she served as a celiac intern at Children’s Hospital Colorado. While she loved working with kids, her junior year internship at an assisted living facility brought a new passion into focus: geriatrics. “I loved connecting with the residents and hearing about their lives,” she said.
While at è˶Ƶ, she also found a calling leading worship services with . “I’ve always had an itch to perform. In high school, it was community theater and debate. Now it’s leading services, which is a totally different type of performance,” she said.
Caplan is a Conservative Jew, a branch of Judaism that follows the traditional liturgy but in a gender-egalitarian service. Her involvement with UMass Amherst Hillel services has helped build bridges between that school and students from throughout the Five College Consortium. By inviting students from all five schools to events and services and working to make them all feel welcome, she’s helped grow intercollegiate participation.
After graduation, Caplan plans to take a gap year before applying to medical school. She’s currently working in André White’s lab, helping with research on the effects of drugs and addiction on memory, and hopes to work in clinical research during her gap year. She’s also putting the finishing touches on her first novel. A lifelong storyteller, Caplan dabbled in poetry and songwriting before diving into her dystopian young adult Shakespeare adaptation. Caplan’s piece layers iconic characters from “Macbeth,” “The Tempest” and “Twelfth Night” into a singular protagonist. Her manuscript is finished, and she’s currently querying agents.
From writing dystopian fiction to tending to the elderly to leading worship services, Caplan proves her point about è˶Ƶ: that connection comes easily when everyone is “dazzlingly interesting.”
