NEEDS AND PRIVILEGES (REALITY)

Sociology/anthropology classes served as the basis to learn what the current socioeconomic situation is in primarily American societies, and how to approach them. These courses helped to diagnose certain inequalities and question their impetus. 

SOAN 260: Marriage and the Family [completed in Spring 2018]

• This course went over the ever-changing definition of a family in modern society, and what impacts certain families in becoming financially and socially successful while some families are continually knocked down. We discussed the effects of race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, incarceration, and death through the lens of families. We completed essays and class presentations through the Structure and Agency model, highlighting the systems in place that help or hinder families, as well as the ways people use their agency to enhance or combat those systems.
• The class highlighted the vastness of Family Studies as a field, and inspired me to consider a career in Social Work. The Structure and Agency model is something that I will continue to utilize in my future as a possible social worker, as well as in relation to activism. The ability to enact change in a community relies heavily on the amount of agency one possesses, and the Structure and Agency model helps to explore the types of systems someone may be under that might hinder their agency. 
• Term Paper: Navigating Racial Identity as a Neo-Ethnic

SOAN 264: Race and Class in American Culture [completed in Fall 2017]

• In this course, we first analyzed the role of class throughout the history of America, including the widening distribution of wealth, capitalism vs. communism, and the ways class impacts family life. These topics inevitably converged with race, and we talked about the huge roles race and ethnicity play in American society. We conducted an ethnography in which we examined a topic of choice further.
• I greatly valued this class in its curriculum, class discussion, and its papers and projects. The course challenged my ideas about race and class, and introduced me to authors and literature that I continue to carry with me. For my ethnographic project, I interviewed St. Olaf students about the ways they’ve dealt with their own intersecting identities on campus, and how those identities have differed in the transition to college. 
• Ethnographic Paper: Climbing the Academic Ladder As a Student of Color

SOAN 269: Urban Sociology [completed in Fall 2018]

• This course laid out the groundwork of Urban Sociology as a field of study through the lens of the Chicago School and its scholars. The class read a variety of works by urbanists around the country and the world and viewed documentaries highlighting urban issues. This was a heavily demanding course in writing, asking the students to apply the theoretical ideas we read in class to contemporary news articles. 
• As the first course focused on urban issues that I took, it was extremely valuable in narrowing my focus of study. In addition, its focus on the city of Chicago gave me much more insight on the city I plan to work in and its history as a metropolis. 
• Short Paper: How to De-Segregate a Hypersegregated Country
• Final Paper: Charter Schools in the Twin Cities

SWRK 221: Social Work and Social Welfare [completed in Fall 2018]

• This course covered the loose timeline of the history of social welfare, and provided an introductory examination of the social work profession. Topics discussed included the values of social workers, the different roles social workers play in society, and what social workers are required to know/do. As a writing course, we wrote papers about our own service history, a biography of a social reformer, and an experience shadowing a professional social worker.
• This was the first course I took in the Social Work Department, and it quickly made me reconsider my career path. This course made me realize how deeply the mission of social work resonated with me, and it influenced my current goal of obtaining my masters in social work. It also inspired me to consider adding more social work courses to my major.
• Social Reformer Paper: Fighting Mary McDowell and her Long-Reaching Social Reform

PSYCH 249: Social Psychology [completed in Spring 2020]

• This was largely an overview of the basic social psychology terms, theories, and concepts that the average person is likely to observe in their day-to-day life. While the course was guided by a textbook, we also listened to many podcasts that had themes tied to the concepts we were studying, such as episodes from Invisibilia and NPR’s Hidden Brain. We wrote many small paper responses and observations of certain theories put into practice. 
• This course was a mid-level psychology course and one that I did not originally intend to include in my major, but one that was extremely relevant to my major studies. We spent a significant amount of time reading about and discussing the social psychological theories that go into why someone does (or does not) help another human. We discussed major studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Shock Experiment, and examined the capacities that human beings possess to harm one another. We also studied the inclinations that people have towards connection and altruism, and how social psychological theories could be used to promote social justice and change. I hope to take my knowledge from this class into whatever graduate program I pursue in the future, be it social work or clinical psychology.

AMST 301: Great Again? American Fiction [completed in Spring 2019]

• Through the lens of fiction novels, this seminar sought to question the ways America is truly great versus the ways it should be critiqued. As a discussion based class, this examination of American fiction led to provocative conversations about the state of the country and its values. We read books such as Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, and A Mercy by Toni Morrison. We also watched the films If Beale Street Could Talk, Zero Dark Thirty, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Overall, this course prompted us to question the line between fiction and non-fiction, as well as the line between the past and present. 
• The discussions we had in this class provoked some essential questions about where our country has been, where we are now, and where we should be headed. This course also introduced alternative forms of agency and activism, such as fiction writing and poetry. It allowed for a creative final project, for which I recorded and edited an hour-long podcast comparing the Jordan Peele horror film Us with Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (attached below).
• Podcast Outline and Explanation
• Works Cited