Jordan Owen

2018 Newman Family Scholarship Recipient

I am a junior majoring in International Studies and Economics with a certificate in Educational Policy Studies. I graduated from Duke School in Durham, NC in 2011 and Carrboro High School in 2015. While in high school I was extremely fortunate to have Matt Cone as my World History teacher in my freshman year. He taught the course with an eye to global transformations, or the ways in which humans and their ways of life have varied across geographical contexts. He was also the faculty advisor for the Global Poverty Reading Group, which was an extracurricular in which I became interested thanks to the rigorous and engaging nature of his class. As a sophomore, I read a dozen books ranging from Poor Economics to Why Nations Fail to Arrival City, gaining an increased knowledge of the complexity of human societies and the staggering amount of inequality that exists in this world. At the end of the class we had the opportunity to meet and discuss the year’s undertaking with Jim Kim, the President of the World Bank, a leader whom I revere for his unwavering commitment to supporting human dignity regardless of geography. I proceeded to take every class my high school had to offer in social sciences, and I never tired of learning new ways to view global problems.

This naturally propelled me towards International Studies 101 in my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The globalization lens helped me tie together trends that I had only just started to uncover during my secondary education. From that class, I proceeded onwards to Social Mobilizations in Latin America, a Survey of African Studies, and Globalization and Education. Each was radically different in its approach to understanding various parts of the world, which was the most enticing part. Some focused more on institutional structures, while others took a more theoretical approach. Combined with the neoclassical models that I was learning in my Economics courses, many of whose assumptions directly contradicted material from my International Studies classes, I have grappled with dualisms every day of the past two years. Among these, studying socioeconomic inequality and the legacies of colonialism have been the most engaging for me.

As a facet of learning about social inequality, I wanted to get hands-on experience in working towards social justice and racial equity. I have had the transformative opportunity to serve as both a facilitator and the Student Coordinator for the Our Wisconsin Program, which seeks to foster diversity inclusion within UW–Madison. Looking outside of the community that I have come to call home, and hoping to gain new perspectives on my topics of study, I decided to study abroad this semester in Sevilla, Spain. After an intensive grammar review, I have commenced my regular classes, all of which are in Spanish. I am taking Politics and Society of the Contemporary Arab World, Islamic Art and Culture in Spain, Migrations in Today’s Globalised World, and a Social Justice and Human Rights Practicum. Between the coursework, excursions with my program, and my efforts to engage with Sevillanos in every aspect of my day, I am stretching myself to see how people engage with each other and their society in another part of the world.

After I graduate, I am considering spending time abroad or in domestic service work before continuing on to graduate school. Though I do not yet know where my International Studies major will lead me, I know that it has provided a solid foundation for any work that requires analytical thinking and interpersonal skills. I have found many of my passions thanks to the interdisciplinary nature of the International Studies major, and will continue to pursue this type of learning moving forward.