Student Testimonial Detail

Alex Hunt

I am on my way to becoming an educator—someone who will be able to extend the benefits offered by a multicultural education to her future students. In graduate school, I will be most interested in researching structural racism in American public schools; in doing so, I will seek to understand how language identity and foreign language learning shapes the development of minority students compared to dominant-culture students.

More than any other generation before us, we think on a global scale; traditional disciplines can feel too limiting or too narrow. It was important for me to commit to an academic program that would prepare me to compete effectively in today’s dynamic and global society. Global Cultures at UCI exceeded all of my expectations.

My emphases in Atlantic Rim and Africa (Nation, Culture, and Diaspora) gave me a fresh perspective on the history and culture of regions that are underrepresented in high school and survey courses. By the time I graduated the Global Cultures major I had taken classes in African American Studies, Art History, Comparative Literature, History, International Studies, and Spanish.

I elected courses in a variety of fields but never lost my academic focus. The Core Courses (Global Cultures 103A, 103B) and Capstone Course (Global Cultures 191W) prepared me well to trace themes and concepts across disciplines; they also helped me refine ideas about my research and career path. With the help of my faculty advisor I tailored my coursework to enrich my understanding of race and language identity in Africa and the Americas. Part of that enrichment took place while I was studying abroad in Argentina, where my coursework counted fully for my majors (Global Cultures and Spanish).

I highly recommend Global Cultures to students seeking to narrow their research interests without compromising the interdisciplinary thinking that is necessary and relevant to daily life in the 21st century. Ultimately, Global Cultures is more than a major; it is a cause. When you become a part of Global Cultures, you contribute your own story and perspective to a community of students and professors seeking to understand complex social processes that shape the human experience.

Update: Alex was accepted into the following two graduate programs and is currently choosing between the two of them:  (1) M.A. in Liberal Arts and Sciences at San Diego State University and (2) M.A. in American Studies at California State University Fullerton.