Marcelo Giraldo '20 Recruiting Profile

    You're environment tests you, you're experiences form you. That's how I see life. You were put in some place and you just need to ask yourself, what makes you different? Whatever it is, that's on you. I'm a New Jersey boy, born and raised with a Colombian background. I've been all over the state and I still live in it but you want to know what makes me special or what is it that makes me a good "candidate" for your program. Well in a brief summary, I don't take everything seriously because not everything is something that matters to me. My passions, goals, education, friends and family are what matter to me and to which those will be the only things I take seriously. You will only see my blood, sweat, and tears when I take what matters to me seriously. 

    I've been playing soccer my entire life. As a player, I see myself as someone who will fail to improve, someone that will try and try again until, whatever it may be, permanently changes for the better. Moreover, I've got a strong love for the game. I will train as much as I can until I see a good level of improvement. I've got technical ability, good vision of the field whenever I got the ball, and I'm a player who will always use physicality, when necessary, to make a statement. To add-on, I see myself as leader, a leader who will push his team to the fullest extent. I'm a leader that will not tolerate poor effort. Win or lose, the level of effort must always be high.

  My academics are not some push-over to me. Sure I don't like some subjects but my grades are still things I care about. If you don't believe me just take a look at my GPA. It should tell you that I don't mess around when it comes to my studies. Just because I'm a teenager doesn't mean I have an actual goal in life. I have one collegiate goal and that's simply to study medicine. Medicine is most definitely an interesting subject to me and I believe it is a good career choice for me judging by the person I am.

    What makes me stand out as a student athlete is my ambition to improve, improve, and improve. I have goals. I have a mindset of a ravenous learner. I always have a hunger for improvement. I always think about how I can be not just a better soccer player but a better person. I've been placed in an environment where a beautiful mother cares for her child and will always hope for the best for her son, where a father encourages his son to never hold back any potential he has, where peers and low-life people attempt to destroy his self-esteem and to make him one of them. I've been put into an environment where my limitations have been tested. Through those experiences in this environment, an ambitious, strong-willed, and intelligent student-athlete is what I came to be.