Rebecca Hanks

2019 Newman Family Scholarship Recipient

I’m Becca Hanks and I’m a junior double majoring in Political Science and International Studies with a certificate in African Studies. I graduated from Urbana High School in Urbana, Illinois in 2016. I was planning on attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a biology major at first. The summer before college, though, a close friend was engaging in a ton of personal exploration and research on international issues and foreign languages. I hadn’t even considered studying the world as a possibility before that summer but, all of a sudden, I was hooked.**

My passion to experience the world around me has informed many of my most fulfilling experiences in college thus far. I lived in the International Learning Community my freshman year. I have served as an intern at the U.S. Department of State. I am the Editor-in-Chief for The Wisconsin International Review and a Communications Intern for the African Studies Program here on campus. And, of course, I am a student in the International Studies Major.

My coursework in this major has completely changed the way I view the world in my daily life. Initially, learning about countries like Namibia, India, or Ecuador was interesting to me because of all the differences I perceived between those places and the United States. Cultural and moral value systems, traditions, holidays, typical meals, clothing, language, religion… everything about these countries was exciting, exotic, and new. I wanted to absorb as much information about them as I possibly could and to learn how and why people across the world were so different from me.

Over the past few years, however, I have reached an even more satisfying understanding: that these people are not so very different at all. The International Studies Major has bridged the gap between my own experiences and those of others across the globe by helping me to wrap my head around the fact that they, like me, are simply living their lives as best they can in the environment in which they were born.

This understanding has given me a new sense of urgency in terms of the international work I would like to pursue in my future career, and I am sure I will have the skills and knowledge I need to engage in that work. I am primarily interested in positions at either a non-governmental organization or at the United States Agency for International Development.

** Funnily enough, that same friend is now studying physics and mathematics and we always talk about how we wish we could take more classes in each other’s fields. Having friends who love to learn about new things as much as you do is truly a blessing!