A journey from Mexico City to Moscow

The first 18 years of life for New Saint Andrews College graduate Santiago Pliego were vastly different from the past four - but his love for both places he's called home are equal.

Pliego was born and raised in Mexico City - the densely populated capital of Mexico and home to 8.8 million people as of 2010.

"It makes one feel like you're a tourist in your own city because you can explore new areas, find places you've never been to and see them with new eyes. To travel within your own city where you've lived for 18 years is kind of a crazy thing. In Moscow you discover new places every once in a while but even if you haven't been to a place, you know about it, you've heard about it. With Mexico City you can get lost and find new places, new people, new things and it just keeps growing - you can never quite put your hands around it. It's so big," he said.

Pliego said his journey of more than 2,000 miles from his home city to Moscow for college is one that had been considered for many years, both for the excellent fit with his faith and the change of scenery. While still being taught at home by his mother, Pliego came across a book that led his family to visit the Palouse.

"We were looking at a catalog for curricular books for homeschooling and found a book on Dorothy Sayers written by Doug Wilson. We looked him up and found out about Moscow and the community and the town," he said.

After a trip to the area, the family decided Moscow was the right place for Pliego and his siblings to travel for education.

"I have one brother and one sister up here at NSA, and one 11-year-old sister still in Mexico with family. She's excited to come out here in the future," he said.

Mexico City, the hometown Pliego calls "wild, fast and crazy," is also inspiring to him - as he called upon his experiences growing up there to complete a collection of short non-fiction for his undergraduate thesis.

"They were scenes or vignettes of my life in Mexico City or analyzing Mexico City, so I was able to blend history and creative writing in my project," Pliego said.

History and creative writing - two of his favorite areas of study and practice - dominated Pliego's choices of electives during the past four years, and may be a focus of his graduate studies, but he is in no hurry to make a decision on that point.

"I'm the kind of person that thrives at having six different interests and have them all be almost not related to one another. It's kind of a bit open ended even as far as what my graduate studies will be, but I can see myself doing a whole host of things," he said.

So for the next one to three years - while his wife of one year, Kate, completes her undergraduate degree at NSA - Pliego plans to pursue another interest.

"I'm working for a software company downtown," he said. "Not the coding part, but more business sales management. I'm really pushing to make that company grow and that's really my goal for the next year before I decide about a master's or graduate studies."

Pliego said he plans to enter NSA's graduate program when time comes, since he was so impressed by his experience as an undergraduate.

"The education was fantastic, super rigorous, really difficult. It was challenging but with lots of payoff because of that," he said. "It was a great experience."

Shanon Quinn can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to squinn@dnews.com.