What motivated you to choose Global Studies as your major?
I was interested in Global Studies because in my last semester of community college, I did a program called Semester at Sea, in which we traveled to 10 different countries. I really loved it! I had been feeling lost about what I wanted to study before then, but I got to take some fascinating Global Studies classes in this program.
I felt drawn to the Global Studies major at Berkeley because there's so many pathways that you can choose within it. It's allowed me to have the flexibility to take the classes that I wanted.
What continues to motivate and inspire you to do Global Studies?
Global Studies seems to always introduce something new that I feel like public high school completely glossed over. It's also very interdisciplinary. For example, my concentration, Global Development, fuses economics and sociology.
What does Global Studies mean to you?
I think it's being able to look at the current political, cultural, and economic states of our world through a critical lens—one that draws on different disciplines.
Annie with an elephant near Jaipur, India
What does Global Studies as a career look like to you? What are your career aspirations?
I'm not entirely sure just yet, but for a while, I've wanted to go into global development. Some of my favorite classes were in environmental science, agriculture, and rural development from an agricultural lens. Our discussions about the overreaches inherent in global development have made me very hesitant to enter a country that I have no ties to and say, "This is what you need to do." Just because you're a technocrat doesn't mean you can respond to their cultural specificities. All that said, I think that Global Studies has provided me with the foundational knowledge for whatever career I do end up pursuing.
What language did you learn for the Global Studies major? How long did you learn it for? How do you use your language learning skills regularly?
I learned Spanish for the major. I took it throughout elementary and high school, and although I've had foundational knowledge in the language, I wish I could have taken more upper-division courses there. Although I'm a little out of practice, I was still able to apply it during Alternative Breaks with the Public Service Center. My cohort went to a school in West Oakland where a lot of the kids spoke Spanish.
Annie with friends in the Moroccan desert
What were your favorite classes at Cal? Favorite Global Studies class?
I really liked a history class I took called the US and Latin America, taught by Professor Herman, as well as GLOBAL 100D by Professor Page. I also loved Professor Leigh's GLOBAL 102, which is the major's research methodology class. We were allowed to choose our paper topics, I wrote about Cuban ballet and how it was impacted by the nation's transition to socialism under Castro. That was really fun because I used to be a ballet dancer!
What was your favorite food abroad?
Pastéis de nata in Portugal and chai in India! We got to drink our chai from kulhads—clay cups—on the side of the road.
What’s your favorite food in Berkeley?
Imm Thai in downtown and La Burrita!
Where’s your favorite place to study in Berkeley?
I love Doe! It's beautiful and quiet. I also love the East Asian Library, the outdoor tables near Rausser, and the Anthropology Reading Room.
Annie overlooking leather tanneries in Fez, Morocco
Have you traveled/studied abroad? Where was your favorite place to visit? What was your favorite experience abroad? What did you learn about the world while abroad? Has this experience informed yourself as a Global Studies student?
I have! My Semester at Sea was definitely the most I've ever traveled. My favorite countries were Kenya and Morocco, which are places that I otherwise would probably never have experienced. Both countries allowed me to experience cultures that I had never been exposed to since my geographical focus is on the Americas—and subsidiarily, Latin America in particular.
I was also taking a human rights class, during which my professor took us to a landfill in Kenya. We talked about the informal economy within which landfills and the workers who live there operate within. We'd talked so much about these sorts of problems before, but seeing it firsthand was so incredibly eye-opening. I think that was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
Annie on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa with a friend.