This course introduced me novels that shaped the modern French literary sensibility and how the French novel has evolved. I read novels by Guy de Maupassant, Albert Camus, and Marguerite Duras. I was able to learn about French culture and history through the themes and messages each novel told. The class required essay responses and a group project at the end of the semester. My group did a presentation on the images of The Lover by Marguerite Duras which featured pictures of Duras and the setting of French Indochina in the 1930s and 1940s. This course showed how France has influenced various parts of the world and how that intersects with colonialism and culture.

This course was an introduction to the study of Africana Studies. From an Afrocentric perspective, I learned about the eight basic subject areas of the multidisciplinary focus; black history, black religion, black creative productions, black politics, black economics, black social organizations, black psychology and black education. As a Black woman, I was amazed to learn more about my culture and about Black history. Through readings, quizzes, and tests, I was able to learn about the underpinnings of Black culture and what perspectives have been created to study it. This was a very enlightening course for me and influenced me to take another Africana Studies course later in my college career.

During my study abroad in Sydney, Australia, I enrolled in a Cross-Cultural Communications course. Through interactive activities and essays, I learned about how people communicate across cultures and how we can bring people together from different backgrounds. Many of the course assignments were based off conversations with a cultural partner, which was someone you met in Sydney which you could talk to them about their culture. I met my cultural partner at a music festival and she was super helpful in enhancing my view about Australian culture and how people are more similar than we think.

This course focused on the issues and experiences of people of African descent in Europe from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Topics covered were migration, transnationalism, race and ethnicity, community activism, cultural production, and other topics to illuminate the formation of new black identities in Europe, as well as the experiences of African, Caribbean, and African-American migrants throughout Europe. This class was very insightful because it gave me a better understanding of the experiences I had while traveling in Europe as a Black woman for study abroad. I found the history of people of African descent in Europe to be fascinating and realized that Black people have been in Europe since before slavery happened. My final project was about how African-American celebrities in the 1900s such as James Baldwin and Josephine Baker fled the United States to Paris, France and how they romanticized their experiences. This course was great to build off of prior Global Studies course content.

This course introduced me to cultural anthropological methods and concepts. I learned about family systems, economic and political change, religion and ritual. Through media, readings, and exams, I challenged ideas I had about society that I thought were normal and natural. This course gave me a new perspective and added invaluable experiences to my Global Studies coursework.

This course was a great introductory, intersectional approach to gender in the professions. I’ve learned a great deal of knowledge about how gender presents itself and manifests inequality in the workplace. It have been helpful being tasked with analyzing how sex, gender, and sexuality relate to working. Through case studies, readings, and weekly discussion boards, I have been able to apply what I have learned about equitable practices related to the gendered workplaces. My final project for the course will be about creating a union task force in a company to allow for better treatment for all workers especially for those with marginalized identities.

This course was an upper level psychology course about self and identity. Aside from lecture, we were tasked with reading books about identity formation and how one views themselves. This relates to my Global Studies certificate because it showed the basis of the human self and also the differences that are presented in different cultures. I really enjoyed this class and thought it was very insightful about who we think we are as people and how people may view ourselves.