Sophie Hilaire '05 Inspiring the Next Generation of Beaumont Alumnae

Sophie Hilaire ’05 spoke to our graduating class via Zoom in May. She shared the following about what she learned from Beaumont and how it has carried her forward throughout her adventurous life.

I’m happy to be joining you today from my Sprinter van that I’ve been living in full time for the past year to share how my life has enfolded since my time at Beaumont. I grew up in Banbridge and attended Kenston HS before I transferred to Beaumont my junior year.

I went to West Point after Beaumont for undergrad and spent six years in the Army with a combat deployment to Afghanistan. For the last four years, I have been a strategy consultant at McKinsey. And for this past year, I have been living in my van working remotely.

One of my favorite things about Beaumont was the limitlessness that you feel and the spirit of entrepreneurship. My teachers encouraged me to just completely design my own path. At Beaumont, I suddenly felt that I could create anything I wanted.

For example, I helped to start the Academic Quiz Bowl Team which allowed me the opportunity to travel to different schools. The countless leadership positions really helped me when it came to applying to college. Beaumont helped me to build a foundation of discovery.

I was part of a pilot program in the Army in Afghanistan where they were first starting to send women out on night raids to detain terrorists. There was a lot of intel and access to certain groups that the Army didn’t have because they were only sending out men. Once they realized that they were losing too much intel and information, they started sending out women. It was very powerful to be a part of that initial start up and help design that program that still exists. We also worked to secure more resources for girls schools and built a women’s police force.

After the Army, I went into consulting. While I was a consultant, I decided I want to climb Mount Everest. I felt this magnetism to it and a calling. However, there were several roadblocks to get there. It cost almost $100,000, I needed to take two months off work and needed a ton of training to get in shape. Again, I brought that same entrepreneurial energy that I felt at Beaumont to the project planning of my journey. And it began to work out! I took out a loan, my employer allowed for me to take a sabbatical and I eventually got into shape.

I made it to the summit by the grace of God and it changed my life in so many ways! I thank Beaumont for that because it was there that I developed the mindset to take on the impossible! And it starts when you’re young, those types of lessons have helped me go do a lot of awesome things in my life.

This current experience of living in the Sprinter van has been life changing. I’ve traveled to every major region of the US and the most important part of this journey is the self-reliance and self-empowerment that’s come along with it. I’ve been forced to learn a lot of other life lessons while carving my own path. My self-education has just become so much more fulfilling.

I think when you graduate from high school, you often think there’s this very linear path towards success. I started off on that path in the most extreme ways, but now I think it has less to do with what you’re going to learn in a classroom and more to do with what you’re going to teach yourself along the way. How much are you willing to invest in yourself? This life isn’t a straight path and that’s totally okay. It actually gets a lot better once you start taking these detours so don’t be afraid of them!

You can follow Sophie’s adventures in her Sprinter van Sage on Instagram @sophiehiliare.

Original article from: https://www.beaumontschool.org/news/2021/11/22/beaumont-news-summerfall-2021-mary-frances-monroe-76-invests-her-expertise-at-beaumont