Julius Mitchell is a proud Chicago native who grew up in a single-parent home with his mother, Tonya, and younger sister, Jade. Despite his father’s absence in his life, the unending support and guidance of his loving family—aunts, uncles, grandmothers, cousins—both grounded and cultivated his commitment to academic success. After being admitted to Walter Payton College Preparatory School, a selective-enrollment magnet high school near downtown Chicago, Julius spent the next four years participating in community service activities at his church, became the second-ever diversity chair of his high school, studied Mandarin Chinese in a State Department-funded summer language program, and maintained his competitive spirit as a national policy debater.

Julius is now a Political Science and Ethnicity, Race & Migration double major at Yale. During his stint in college, Julius has written for and edited several campus-wide publications including the Yale Daily News and Sphere Magazine, participated in intramural sports, volunteered for New Haven-based organizations, and studied intensive Mandarin Chinese in Beijing on the Richard U. Light Fellowship. He currently spends most of his time as business manager of Shades (a co-educational a cappella group dedicated to singing and to sharing music of the African Diaspora), as head recruitment coordinator at the Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions (where he works with a team of enthusiastic student employees who facilitate outreach and recruitment projects for prospective students), and as a student representative on the Intercultural Affairs Council (a council of deans, administrators, and students who discuss and brainstorm policies and events to improve campus climate). Last summer, he completed an internship in Southeast Asia with the secretariat of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats where he learned diplomacy skills firsthand by interacting with politicians from Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Pakistan and more.

While Julius has yet to decide what he wants to do in the future, he is excited for the rest of his time at Yale and looking forward to many more opportunities to explore his passions after graduation.