University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Written Artifacts
Ghana Position Paper
I wrote this paper outside of the classroom for Model United Nations. We attend two conferences every Spring and are required to submit a paper ahead of time to indicate our country's position on the given topics we are assigned. For this conference in St Louis, I wrote a position paper for the General Assembly Third Committee (which discusses social, cultural, and humanitarian issues) from Ghana's point of view. I chose this artifact because it not only demonstrates my fierce commitment to the Model UN team, but also because it showcases my ability to meticulously research and apply my knowledge with a diverse world view. I love this paper because Ghana was my favorite country to represent at a Model UN function. They have so many innovative programs and leadership roles across their region. I happily received a peer award, an outstanding delegate award, and an award for this paper at the conference.
Politics of Genocide
Although this political science class was clearly depressing, I learned a lot about political theory, international policy, and human behavior through the various projects we did. For this artifact, I chose to showcase my midterm project which was to propose amendments to the existing United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Some of my vocabulary skills were not honed by my sophomore year, but otherwise I was able to provide solid arguments and put forth reasonable solutions to the problems with the Genocide Convention. I also did so keeping in mind the entire international community and what their subsequent reactions might be in regards to my changes.
Honors World Religions
I had only ever taken one religions class before, but it focused solely on the philosophical outlook of Christianity. This class, on the other hand, explored a multitude of different religious beliefs across the globe. For this assignment, I was expected to analyze and compare two different texts on religious persecution of two different faiths. I was excited (as anyone could be when writing about such a horrific topic) to tie my political knowledge with my knew-found religious knowledge, and I was able to produce a decent paper for a junior who felt way out of her element. I chose this artifact because it displays the ways in which I can link issues and gain a broader cultural understanding, even when learning something completely new.
Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Literature
Despite my challenges in learning a foreign language, I was able to achieve a Spanish minor after the end of this class. The paper that I have chosen has a lot of meaning to me, because it demonstrates my resilience as a student. I had a lot of trouble keeping up with the amazing Spanish majors in this class and after this paper was assigned, but I worked diligently to make it through to the end. But I didn't just scrape by, I learned so much about Spanish culture, medieval literature as a whole, and I gained a whole new vocabulary list of (fancy) Spanish words. I was able to clearly convey my argument about the Catholic Church's influence on Spanish literature in the Medieval era.
International Studies Senior Seminar
This was my final paper as an International Studies student (well, "final," I still have a thesis to write). For this paper, we had to focus on the impact of global governance on a particular issue. I chose to write about global health governance in sub-Saharan Africa relating to the the increase in diagnoses and deaths from non-communicable diseases. I was able to go into depth, using both my political science and international studies background to discuss how the lack of attention and resource allocation for non-communicable disease by global health governance is hindering the ability of states in sub-Saharan Africa to combat this upcoming crisis. I loved this paper because I was able to present a different perspective (from sub-Saharan Africa's point of view) on such an imperative (and interesting!) topic.