Mithila Iyer ’19

Majors and mentors inspire causes and callings.

“Grinnell was really the first place where I actually had the chance, or the self-awareness, to pursue something that was a little bit out of my comfort zone, and it amplified existing interests into incredible passions in several different ways.” 
— Mithila Iyer ’19

A newfound love for theatre pushed Mithila Iyer ’19 to audition for two mainstage theatre productions at Grinnell during her first year at the College.

When she didn’t get a callback, Iyer enrolled in an Intro to Acting class in the spring semester. Her perseverance paid off when she landed a spot in a student production directed by Sophiyaa Nayar ’17.

“I knew that this was something I wanted to keep doing no matter how difficult it was initially,” Iyer says.

This spirit of perseverance remained characteristic of Iyer, as she applied for the Fischlowitz Travel Fellowship her third year. This was her second attempt, inspired by and combining her passion for human rights and art. The uniqueness of her travels, which enabled her to visit five theatre companies to investigate minority theatre culture, would not have been possible without the lessons she learned from her first attempted application for the same Fellowship the year before.

“I wanted to see why these companies produced what they did, and why they felt the need to create art that spoke to these particular themes,” she says. “What I did not expect to find was the fact that several performances had themes that were pretty universally relatable.”

One example came in the play Bingo Hall, which is about a teenager deciding between different colleges, anticipating the changes that would come with leaving home, which sounded familiar to Iyer who left her family’s home in India in 2015 to attend Grinnell.

“Grinnell was one of the first places where I actually had the chance, or the self-awareness, to pursue something that was a little bit out of my comfort zone, and it amplified existing interests into incredible passions in several different ways,” Iyer says.

That those interests varied – depiction of women in French film, economic development, international human rights – mattered little.

“Through conversations with faculty, I was able to take classes that aren’t necessarily coherent – acting, economics, and French,” Iyer says. “The time I spent around peers made me think critically about these interests, not just solely in terms of academics, but in terms of forming a unique combination that was ‘me.’ This gave me the confidence to continue exploring them until they became passions, and I learned the skills to build strong connections between them for my future.”

Iyer ended up majoring in French and economics, both of which expanded her self-awareness in human rights. She spent a whole year taking classes that were tangentially related to interests in development and human rights. She also began to see freedom of expression and theatre representation as a natural extension of human rights.

This led to her successful attempt to the previously mentioned Fischlowitz Travel Fellowship, which provides $5,000 to the winning student for travel during the summer or breaks during the school year. The fellowship is geared toward international students who haven’t had the resources to travel extensively in the United States.

Iyer’s trips to New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Fort Worth, and San Francisco not only led to research discoveries about diverse perspectives, but also personal growth in the form of self-reliance and independence.

After graduation, Iyer moved to Washington D.C., where she works in economic development research and watches as many plays as she can.

“The fellowship really taught me that I can take on whatever I choose – and sometimes more than I thought was possible,” she says.