-- Overall, how was your experience in the African Studies Minor program?

I felt like I could talk to advisors in African Studies whenever I had questions. Laura Hubbard knows any and every class that has anything to do with Africa and was instrumental in helping me plan and form my courses to fulfill the minor. She also recommended professors and others with whom I should talk based on my specific interests in sustainable sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              



-- What influenced your decision to receive your Minor in African Studies?

My major was Chemical Engineering and I wanted to complement that technical base by exploring my interest in development through the African Studies Minor. My principal interests lie at the intersection of engineering and development, and pursuing the minor helped me add a new and fulfilling dimension to my academic career at Stanford. I was able to study abroad in Cape Town and have all of my classes count toward the minor. In addition, the classes I took before going to South Africa helped me to parse and process my experiences there. In my current graduate research, I continue to apply the lessons I learned in history, anthropology, and language classes in African Studies. I am able to grow into the complete scholar I want to be because of my interdisciplinary training in Chemical Engineering and African Studies. 

Although I am an engineer, I find it imperative to ground engineering in human needs and desires. Too often technologies are developed without a user in mind or are ill-suited to users. As a scholar from the developed world, it is even more important that I study the past and present of societies in the developing world as I seek to one day design sustainable sanitation systems for use there.

 

-- Do you have any advice for prospective Minor students?

The African Studies Minor is what you make of it. Think critically about what your goals are at Stanford and if you are working toward them with your coursework and experiences out of the classroom. I used the minor as an opportunity to expand my scholarship and inform my technical exploration of technologies that I hope to develop and apply in southern Africa.