Kobe Sandoval, a 2017 Marshalltown High School graduate, is participating in a summer dance program in Los Angeles known as LA Cultural Exchange.
Story written by Samantha Edwards, volunteer writer
Kobe Sandoval is a Marshalltown High School graduate doing a dance program in Los Angeles as part of the LA Cultural Exchange program.
She participated in the summer program in 2017 and will be heading back to LA this summer as a dance captain. She will be guiding dance students around the LA area along with taking dance classes while she is out there. Her goal is to get to LA full time to dance. She will have room and board, airfare and dance classes included in the dance experience for this summer.
“I will be going to Los Angeles and essentially dancing the entire time I am there,” she said. “I’m going specifically as their dance captain, so I will be showing the kids around and taking classes with them.”
There are a wide range of classes from ballet to hip-hop. Kobe enthusiastically said hip hop classes are her favorite by far and said taking dance classes “is the best feeling in the world.”
Kobe Sandoval
Kobe graduated from MHS in 2017. She will be attending an online college in Colorado named Front Range this fall. MHS helped her get ready for college by “giving me the opportunity to experience and try different classes, like electives,” she said. “It was a variety of different areas and classes just to see and get a feel for what different career paths there are.”
She said her favorite class was AP psychology at MHS. Psychology will be her major at her online college, then she plans to double major in psychology and dance at a university.
When asked what she would tell future students at MHS, she said, “take as many college classes as you can. Take advantage of that opportunity (since) those classes are free.”
Her aspirations for the future are to become a well-known professional dancer or be a psychologist. Kobe knows that those are two different areas but explains those are the main goals. She currently lives in West Des Moines, but if given the opportunity to teach dance, she would like to be in LA.
It all started for her in Marshalltown. Kobe proudly said, “there was a lot of support [at MHS], teachers were great help and were not willing to give up on their students, which was great because teachers were there for you.”
Samantha Edwards
Volunteer writer Samantha Edwards is a 2006 graduate of Marshalltown High School.
