Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:

Our future lies in our destiny!

What I like best about Urban Studies: The strong community of a small but ambitious program, excellent advising, a comprehensive core, and the undying commitment to social change.

Favorite class / professor (and why): The Archeology of Modern Urbanism / Barb Voss exposed me to a completely new way of understanding the city through material culture. Barb is also an inspiring and dedicated teacher.

Favorite book (and why): Calvino’s Invisible Cities because it expresses so well the symbolic nature of the city.

Career goal / Future plans: Historic preservation, inner-city economic development, immigrant and labor rights advocacy, municipal government, or maybe something else entirely.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): languages, Russian literature

Extracurriculars: Undergraduate Senate, Habla ESL tutoring, promoting student arts

Something else you should know about me: Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. (Whitman)

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
I decided to major in Urban Studies because it involves everything that I am interested in: art, social justice, history, education, people and CITIES!

What I like best about Urban Studies: The advisors and counselors.

Favorite book (and why): I have way too many favorite books. Among my top ten are Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon and The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Their writing is precise and pretty much, illuminating.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minor in Film and Media Studies

Something else you should know about me: I love old-school movie houses.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: It allows me the opportunity to study education within the context of the city system, giving me a much more holistic understanding of the root causes that lead to and cultivate systematic inequality within the education sector. I believe it is important to understand the whole picture to be able to affect change and help underserved communities.

What I like best about Urban Studies: All of my classes fit together and build on one another.

Favorite class / professor (and why): Urban Education with Professor Ball. The class gave me many new angles from which I am able to approach education issues.

Favorite book (and why): Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Beals. The effort of the Little Rock Nine integrating Little Rock High School is a great example of true perseverance and strength.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): French, African and African American Studies

Extracurriculars: Project Motivation, Black Student Union, NAACP, Catch-A-Fyah Caribbean Dance Group

Something else you should know about me: I studied abroad in Paris during sophomore year after studying French for a year.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I feel like cities are where change happens and that excites me.

What I like best about Urban Studies: it has the perfect balance of structure and flexibility

Favorite book (and why): The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan for its unique perspective on human plant interactions.

Career goal / Future plans: Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minor in Latin American Studies

Extracurriculars: Gardening and Hiking

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I love cities and care deeply about making them better places to live and work for lower income communities and underrepresented populations.

What I like best about Urban Studies: Conversations with Edgardo about art activism, late night econ psets and studying with Kazi, and imagining and sketching out city blocks with Erica

Favorite class / professor (and why): Cities in Comparative Perspective, Professor Ebron and Angel are beyond knowledgeable and the course reading was well chosen (especially Righteous Dopefiend)

Favorite book (and why): Drown by Junot Diaz- the vignettes are incredibly honest and thought provoking about how we engage in relationships

Extracurriculars: tribal fusion belly dance, muay thai

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I am not sure what I want to do when I grow up, but every Urban Studies course that I’ve taken seems to introduce me to a new possibility.  After Intro to Urban Studies I considered architecture, after Urban Underclass I was inspired to be an educator in urban America, and after Sustainable Cities I tossed around the idea of working in local government. The urban environment is where my interests lie and I want to fully explore all the possibilities before I go to work there.

What I like best about Urban Studies: A side-effect of the interdisciplinary major is a classroom full of people with a range of interests. I love working on a project or discussing a topic with classmates who think differently than I do and are in the major because their passions are different from mine. This is basically the reality of every urban studies class I’ve taken or major social event (woo! woo!) I’ve attended—and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the urbs community J!

Favorite class / professor (and why): Urban Underclass/Rosenfeld: Oh, boy. I’ve never read so much in such a short amount of time in my life (except maybe with the Harry Potter Series), but when it was all said and done, the reading and sections and even the exams were all worth it. The urban underclass, the poorest of the poor in America, is not a topic that you can understand by reading a one-page article in a magazine; it took ten weeks to understand the way America works (or doesn’t) in relation to its most disadvantaged citizens. I constantly reference what I learned in this class and I wish it were required for all Stanford students.

Favorite book (and why): My Friend Leonard This novel is not related to Urban Studies (although some of it takes place in Chicago where urban studies was developed), but it is just a wonderful story about life and relationships.

Career goal / Future plans: Unknown…for now

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Not a minor, but I love foreign languages!

Extracurriculars: Club basketball, Tutoring for Community, and Urbanter

Something else you should know about me: Settler’s of Catan is the best!

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I prefer doing to studying, and Urban Studies is a field of action.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Public Policy minor, interest in homelessness

Extracurriculars: In my spare time I enjoy writing poetry, re-reading kids’ books, and eating.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: Urban Studies teaches you how and why people live the way they do, and how you can change that in the future.

What I like best about Urban Studies: It includes all aspects of life: art, physical space, education, culture, architecture, history, politics, and so many more.

Favorite class / professor (and why): Sustainable Cities (Urban Studies 164) with Hilary Boudet because it incorporated service learning and our final deliverable will be implemented. It was interesting to see the difference between the theory we learned in class and the practical obstacles, both political and otherwise, that changed our projects’ courses.

Favorite book (and why): Too many. Sophie’s Choice, Heart of Darkness, Notes from Underground, and anything by Studs Terkel. I like books that take me out of modern times, particularly out of the United States.

Career goal / Future plans: Urban design or planning with an environmental focus

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minoring in Modern Language

Extracurriculars: Stanford Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars (SUSS), Club Lacrosse, Green Living Council (GLC), Urbanter, Haas Center for Public Service 

Something else you should know about me: I live for travel and good food.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: A huge number of the classes offered at Stanford that address human rights and social movements are housed in the Urban Studies department.  For me, it is those classes that first drew me into Urban Studies and have kept me loving the Urban Studies program ever since.    

What I like best about Urban Studies: The people.  Urban studies kids and professors seem to really want to make the world a better place.  That’s such a refreshing and exciting environment to be a part of. 

Favorite class / professor (and why): Food and Community with Page Chamberlain.  The class consists of gleaning fruit from trees across campus, gorilla gardening, and working on an urban farm in San Francisco.  I’m pretty sure that class cannot be more fun than that. 

Favorite book (and why): It’s a tie between The Things They Carried (a straight up beautiful book), Beyond Mountains (inspirational/personally challenging), and The Second Sex (interesting and empowering).   

Career goal / Future plans: Maybe I’ll try and be an environmental lawyer.  Maybe I’ll work with some non-profits who work to address food systems issues.  Or maybe something else.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Philosophy (minor)

Extracurriculars: Students for a Sustainable Stanford, Stanford Gleaning Project, The Stanford Farm Project, SPOON, and Produce KM at Synergy

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: It combines all my interests into one convenient major, and is the only undergraduate education degree at The Stan.

What I like best about Urban Studies: Knowing where and how I’ll be able to apply in my life everything I learn in class.

Favorite class / professor (and why): EDUC 116X, Service Learning as an Approach to Teaching

Favorite book (and why): The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Read it to a kid.

Career goal / Future plans: President of the United States

Extracurriculars: Fleet Street, recruiting for the Americorps and City Year

Something else you should know about me: Did I mention I’m running for President of the United States?

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: The design of the habitats and communities we live in structure our entire life. How cool is that?

What I like best about Urban Studies: There are so many options!

Favorite class / professor (and why): Either Global Human Geography 106a and b with Martin Lewis- I never knew how much I didn’t know about the world; I think I reference something I learned from those classes at least once a day, or Education 103b with Arnetha Ball, if you want to be inspired to be an urban school teacher, this seminar will do it.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Drama, Education

Extracurriculars: Jumpstart, Alliance Streetdance, seeing as much theater as possible