Preparing Global Citizens

Ask Hattie Seten what it means to be a Jackrabbit, and the triple major replies, “Having someone say ‘Hello’ to you. It’s rare that I walk across campus without having someone say, ‘Hi’ to me. SDSU is a really welcoming campus.”

Hattie Seten

Music education major Micah Perry agrees. Even before he graduated high school, faculty encouraged him to enroll. “I chose SDSU because of the thriving music program and amazing faculty. As I got to know the faculty, I knew that I would be successful in their hands.”

Success for Perry is a career in vocal performance. Summer 2019, his voice instructor, Laura Diddle, professor of music and director of choral activities, encouraged him to apply to study opera in Austria. “Being cast in an opera overseas with music students from across the globe was the first big step in hopefully a long line of big steps leading to a career in vocal performance,” said Perry, a 2017 Woodbine Scholar.

Thanks to engaged faculty focused on helping him achieve his career goals, Cole McDougall found himself on a life-changing adventure, interning for an optometrist in Vietnam. “I have always had a real interest in health care, but being in Vietnam, working with a doctor who was a true public servant—he only made $12,000 a year and donated half back to the hospital—really changed my perspective,” explained McDougall, a human biology, pre-optometry major.

Micah Perry

Through this experience, McDougall says he developed a strong interest in public health policy.

Initially, McDougall thought he would spend his college career studying. It was his career adviser, Marjoanne Thompson, who encouraged him to get involved in extracurricular activities and explore study abroad opportunities. “Before SDSU, I don’t think I would have stepped outside my comfort zone to do any of the experiences I have had,” said McDougall, who has been actively involved with the Hobo Day Committee, Students’ Association and Pre-Professional Science Club. In 2019, he traveled to Ghana as part of a faculty-led health care experience. “As an SDSU student, I have confidence because I know that faculty and friends here actually care about me and my future.”

Like Perry and McDougall, Seten says international experiences affirmed her career aspirations. A global studies, political science and Spanish major who studies Arabic on the side, Seten is working toward a career in U.S. foreign service.

With the help of the Chris Rieb Memorial Award in Political Science Scholarship, which provides stipends to students who accept unpaid internships, and the Donald and Francisca Kluckman Study Abroad Scholarship Endowment in Modern Languages, Seten spent summer 2019 interning with the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. “This internship showed me how I will apply what I am learning in my classes at SDSU to a real-world career in the foreign service.”

Cole McDougall

Prior to becoming a Jackrabbit, Seten spent her first year after high school immersed in studying Arabic in Morocco through the U.S. Department’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth program. After this global experience, Seten was a bit unsure about returning to the Midwest to attend college. But since SDSU allowed her to pursue a triple major in her areas of interest, and she had scholarships waiting, she enrolled and says the university has exceeded her expectations.

“SDSU can be an international experience if you want it to be,” explained Seten, who joins with other SDSU students and volunteers her time each week to help Central American immigrants learn English and finds plenty of opportunities to keep her Arabic and Spanish fluent through conversations with international faculty and students. “This is a friendly campus where I have been able to build connections not just with students from across the Midwest, but from all over the world.”

      – Lura Roti, for the SDSU Foundation