An Unplanned Adventure

Senior Yasmin Santos is very involved in campus life at the University of Central Florida. This Fort Lauderdale natives loves water sports: UCF surf club, knights wake (boarding); she is a LEAD Scholar, a member of KnightCast (campus radio station) street team and served on the sponsorship board for Relay for Life.

Yasmin also joined the Florida Epsilon Chapter of Pi Beta Phi in Spring 2014 and it did not take long for her share a special experience with a few of her sisters. She heard a sister speaking loudly in the chapter house about planning to trip to Costa Rica.; Yasmin yelled out, “I’m down!” Yasmin has gone on two previous organized trips during college and she wanted a spontaneous trip. Although they met only a couple of times to outline what they planned to do, they had five things on their must-do list: jump waterfall, see volcano, surf, spend a day on the beach and a night out on the town.

For spring break 2015, Florida Epsilons Paige Fink, Kaitlyn Steinenger, Summer Carlson, and Yasmin headed down to Costa Rica to stay at Paige’s grandfather’s home. They achieved four of their planned items, all except a night out on the town.

They kept a running log of funny things from the trip: “the monkey took mine” (referring to a water bottle) or “ I’m turning into a mango.” But her favorite moment was feeding monkeys on Santa Teresa beach because she had never done it before.

It was the only vacation break this senior took in college and it was the greatest experience with Pi Phi – hands down! Her motto of “Make Connections with Everyone,” has helped Yasmin make even a deeper bonds with her sisters. A valuable treasure that Yasmin now has is a notebook of all the things she documented from their trip. She knows she will treasure the memories for the rest of her life.