With the end of senior year approaching quickly, the emails are pouring in about graduation and the last few things needed to complete my success at Kutztown. One of the most recent emails I received was for my induction into Triota for my Women and Gender studies minor. When I was a sophomore, I decided to take on a Women and Gender Studies minor. This interest first began when I took a course called Women and Violence. Though this seems scary from the name, it was my favorite course I took while at Kutztown. The novels and movies that were part of the curriculum were some of the best novels I read and some of the greatest movies I’ve seen. I still have them on my shelf for a time when I want to re-read them. Because of this course, my interest in women and how they move throughout the world began to expand. As the courses I took for this minor went on, I found myself immersed in this field. I was taking English courses that were centered toward women and gender because of the interest I took in it.
Being a Women and Gender studies minor has affected my college career immensely. Once I became a WGS minor, I began to look at the world differently. Things that I would hear on the news, or read for other classes, I would look at through the lens of my WGS minor. Every paper I had to write for another class seemed to be focused on a female protagonist and her agency, or gender throughout the text. With WGS, everything in my life revolved around women, gender, and how these things existed throughout the world.
Women and Gender studies has already begun to impact my future within my career path. I currently work at a literary agency and we focus on many works written by women and their experiences with female empowerment and agency. Just by giving these women a place to go to have their work published, gives them agency and gives them the belief that they can accomplish anything they want.
My WGS minor has given me a great opportunity for the future and a new way to look at the world. For this, I am proud of my accomplishments within WGS and will continue to teach others.