Riverland Community College

Yasmin Bacelar de Souza 

Home Country: Salvador-Bahia, Brazil
Anticipated Graduation: 2021
Degree/Major: Musical Theatre

Yasmin Bacelar is currently an international student at Riverland Community College. She’s taking all her classes online from Brazil this semester. Yasmin has been in plays her whole life and decided to be an actress by the age of 12. When she was 15-years-old, she decided that what she wanted for her life was to study musical theatre, but soon she would discover that in Brazil there are no universities or colleges that offer a musical theatre program. 

That’s when she knew she would have to leave her home country to get her education. After months of studying her options, and not having a lot of money, Yasmin came across Riverland with the help of an agency for exchange students. It was one of the few community colleges that offered a musical theatre program, and that’s what made her choose Riverland. 

She spent a whole semester at Riverland, and midway into the second semester, the pandemic happened. Classes moved online, the spring musical production was canceled, and she had to go back to her home country all in under two weeks. With time, online classes became easier to manage, she got used to being home and she was even in Riverland’s online theatre production of She Kills Monsters this semester from Brazil. Yasmin says Riverland helped her become a better and more dedicated student. 

She plans to return to campus next semester and transfer to a bigger university after graduating from Riverland. Her long time goal is to be able to go back to her country after graduating from a university to work at a musical theatre there as a professional and with her degree, hopefully better Brazil’s field and help it grow.