Anyone who knows me well knows that my ultimate goal is to go to graduate school, get a MA, PhD, and become a college professor. But why did I decide to major in East Asian Studies and minor in Women's Studies? I must admit, both are a bit unusual, not to mention even slightly impractical.
First, let me explain how I became interested in my areas of study. As a first year student at Wittenberg University, I enrolled in Japanese 111, first year Japanese. I did it mainly to make a point: that studying a somewhat advanced language was not too difficult for me. I must say that those first few months were rough (to put it simply). Learning Japanese prooved to be a dubious task for me. I has an extremely difficult time with the Kanji and the grammar. My Hiragana and Katakana were pretty much illegible. I was failing. And at that point, I didn't care. I just wanted to somehow get a decent grade and switch back to French after first semester.
But after Fall Break (which is the mid-semester point), something changed. Maybe I became more motivated, or maybe my awesome professor, Dr. Amy Christiansen, kicked my ass in gear, but whatever it was, my Japanese began to improve. Quickly. By some miracle, I got a high score on the final exam and got a more-than-decent semester grade. After Winter Break, upon returning to Wittenberg, I became good (for a beginner) at Japanese. I even began to enjoy it. I loved communicating in Japanese. I loved going to my Japanese class. I even did not mind doing the crazy amounts of homework that AC gave my class.
I registered to take Japanese 211 (second year) during my sophomore year. That surprised everyone because my original plan was just to take the required two semesters to get rid of Wittenberg's language requirement. The teacher wasn't good and I felt that I was where I had started again. I was discouraged. But I didn't give up. In fact, I had AC for a Japanese literature in translation course (20th Century Japanese Women Writers!) that semester. Although my language class sucked, I still enjoyed speaking, reading, and writing Japanese. And with the literature class as a perfect compliment, I quickly decided that I was highly interested in Japan and Japanese and chose to major in East Asian Studies. I picked AC as my academic advisor because I trusted her to give me sound advice, and I was able to relate to her.
During my junior year, I declared a Women's Studies minor, which everyone saw coming. I was officially an East Asian Studies major and a Women's Studies minor. The Women's Studies minor seemed to be less out of the blue than my major. I was always interested in issues of equality and feminism.
I took advantage of all that Witt had to offer in both my major and minor departments. I was able to study abroad in Japan near Osaka. I assisted the Women's Studies faculty with designing their website. I took 4 years of Japanese language including a unique independent study which allowed me to mentor a group of 8 Japanese exchange students. I served as President of Voices (Witt's women's group) and as a member of the Women's Program Committee (a coalition which consisted of students and faculty). I volunteered at Planned Parenthood. For my senior thesis, I combined my interests in Women's Studies and Japan by researching feminism and abortion in Japan.
I don't know when I decided that I want to be a professor, but I imagine it stems from the awesome faculty I worked with at Wittenberg. But at the time of my undergrad graduation (May of 2000), I knew what I wanted to be. It took me a long time to decide on exactly what I want to study in graduate school (that is why I did not apply for the Fall of 2000), but I thought about it long and hard. I am pretty much settled on Japan Studies (though I am applying to some more broad East Asian programs) with a graduate certificate in Women's Studies (like a minor, only at the graduate level). Sound familiar? My primary research interest is contemporary Japanese feminism. I would like to continue researching abortion in Japan and comparing it to abortion in the United States (many differences). I am also interested in modern feminist movements in Japan and how they empowered women and slowly tore down some of the existing power structres. I am looking at schools mostly on the West Coast. That seems to be the place to be if I want to research Asia! During grad school, I would also like to spend some time in Japan doing research. And although I do not want to be a linguist or Japanese literature major, I hope to be fluent in Japanese by the time I get out of graduate school. I don't care about Classical Japanese or Chinese (ha! That's what makes me different from a linguistics major!) or even about Japanese literature. I am obviously more interested in the social sciences.
In ten years (maybe more or maybe less, it all depends on how long the dissertation takes me), I envision myself teaching Japanese studies classes with a feminist viewpoint at the college level. I would like to work at a liberal arts institution (much like Wittenberg) where the focus in on teaching, not researching (Though I plan to do both. In fact, one of my goals is to be published by the time I have my MA). I have a long time to decide, though.
For now, I am working on raising my LAME (sadly, that is true) GRE (Graduate Record Exam) scores (I hate ETS! But I need to break down that barrier before grad school!). I am also working on my applications, begging Wittenberg professors for letters of rec., and hoping that I get in somewhere GOOD (Sadly, to be an academic, you must go to a grad school with a name)! I am excited to start graduate studies one day soon!
Phew. That was a ramble. Anyway, go back to my home page. Oh, and if you're on a graduate admissions committee, LET ME IN, PLEASE! :-)
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