Spotlight on: Leandro Carneiro
Today we begin a new series on former residents at the IFH. To share your story, please email the managers with your picture and info.
I am from Brazil, born in the city of Petropolis, in 1997 I came to US as a senior at Gloucester High School, in Gloucester MA. Since then I always wanted to come back and pursue a career here. Even though I got accepted in a few colleges here, I could not stay due to financial reasons so I went back to Brazil, got my dental degree and when I had a change to come back, I did. In 2007 I got accepted at Boston University to earn a Doctor of Science in Oral Biology degree and I came. I searched for a place to go and I found the IFH. I still remember looking at the online pics. Great looking house, perfect location, interesting concept, I would be living with other international students that would be dealing with similar school situations as me and it was good price. It was my first time kind of on my own in US and the IFH would provide me with everything I needed plus I would not have to worry about millions of things that come with living alone and moving in. Especially me not having furniture, TV, kitchen appliances, things that we usually don't think about.
As IFH goes, I have to say that I had the greatest time there. I made friends, I lived in a place where I got support from everyone. I used to be the breakfast person so I had to wake up earlier to prepare breakfast for a lot of people. That was also one summer time when I combined the breakfast job, the removing and cleaning dinner dishes and the cleaning the house. I just couldn't do the cleaning the bathroom, I hate cleaning bathrooms. I don't remember the room numbers but when I first moved in I was in the last floor in the room next to the small room facing the back of the house. Eventually, I moved to the biggest room that had the biggest closet, and stayed there until I had to move out. I was starting my last year of school and I had to spend countless hours in the lab and working on my dissertation so moving next to school seemed like a good idea. It was good but I missed the house dynamics, the studying in the roof, the roof BBQs, the trips, the people, Xmas, specially the dinners when we gathered around to eat like a family which is something I used to do back home. Even though it was work, I used to love the days where we had spring cleaning (is that how it was called) when everyone in house had to clean the entire house, followed by pizza. There are soo many great thing about IFH that made my experience there unforgettable that it is hard to pinpoint the best moment.
After I received my DSc degree, I decided I wanted to not only teach dentistry buy also practice in US so I applied and got accepted to an Advanced Education in General Dentistry program at Eastman Institute for Oral Health, University of Rochester in Rochester NY. After earning the AEGD degree I got accepted to the Periodontics program also at EIOH and I am now a second year resident. I ended up meeting my wife through some common friends and popped the question a year later and lucky she said yes. She has an 8 years old son named Ayden and a cat named Sophy. Things changed since I came to US in 2007. Once just a single guy searching for higher education, now a family guy.
