Volunteer Spotlight
Rachel Schneider Mehta ’95 and Jake Schneider ’04
When it was time to apply to college, Jake Schneider ’04 says, he did not want to go to Trinity. “There was no reason for that reluctance,” he explains, “except for the fact that my sister went there and I wanted to do something different.”
Rachel Schneider Mehta ’95 loved her four years in Hartford. She blossomed as a student, majoring in American studies and minoring in Spanish studies, and sensed her brother would have an equally positive experience given their similar dispositions.
“He was looking at these bigger schools, yet I just knew Trinity would be a good place for him to flourish,” Mehta says. “We’re both very intellectually driven, very curious people. But we both also carve out a lot of time for humor.”
Pulling the big sister card, Mehta insisted that Schneider apply to Trinity. She even paid his application fee. When admissions decisions were released and Schneider got into a number of colleges, Trinity offered him a scholarship that dwarfed that from every other school.
The two had experienced a tragedy when their father passed away several years earlier. For the single-parent household, financial aid was critical. Schneider’s reticence evaporated instantly, and he accepted Trinity’s offer. “I got to go to college because they picked me and decided they would be generous with me,” he says. “I will forever be grateful to Trinity for that help.”
For both siblings, Trinity provided an education that expanded their worldviews and shaped the rest of their lives. Mehta, a self-described liberal arts junkie who typically keeps five books on her nightstand, relished the opportunity to learn in such a dynamic setting. “If I had been on a singular track somewhere else, I probably would’ve felt stifled,” she says. “But being able to take American studies, architecture, history, religion classes––to have that freedom to travel in some different directions was really a gift.”
Schneider adds, “I wouldn’t trade the education I received at Trinity for any other place.” He majored in computer science, which he planned to study wherever he attended, and took advantage of Trinity’s liberal arts curriculum by completing the Guided Studies: European Civilization program (now called the Humanities Gateway Program) and minoring in legal studies. Today, he is a technology and intellectual property lawyer at Holland & Knight LLP in Boston.
Mehta is an angel investor and a consultant for a cybersecurity conference company. “Having a liberal arts background has made me unafraid of taking chances professionally,” she says. “My experiences at Trinity gave me the inquisitiveness and confidence to enter new industries and to figure things out.”
As students, they each found ways to give back to the Trinity community. Mehta put her Spanish skills to use by tutoring dining hall employees in English as a second language, while Schneider represented his peers for two years as class president.
As alumni, they remain generous with their time. Mehta serves as her class vice president and a class steward, which allows her to engage with classmates who have given to Trinity. Schneider is a class agent and serves as his class secretary. He also is quick to hop on the phone with current Bantams who are interested in entering his field.
“If you ask alums across the generations what makes Trinity special, they’ll tell you it’s the people and the relationships we build with classmates, professors, coaches, and staff,” says Liz Hanusovsky Patterson ’05, director of annual giving. “Rachel and Jake’s bond as siblings is just a more visible example of the interconnectedness of our community—and the way we come together to support our alma mater and one another.”
Mehta and Schneider each have two daughters. As parents, they are used to getting asked to volunteer for various organizations and school committees. “You have to be careful about not saying yes to too many things,” Mehta says. “But Trinity is always a really easy yes.”
Her brother agrees. “My rule is that if they call me, I answer the phone and I try to help the College because it helped me out when I needed it as a teenager,” Schneider says. “To be in that environment with those professors and get that education, it makes you who you are.”
—Eliott Grover
Illustration by Kathryn Rathke
