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Some students begin their college journey knowing exactly what they want to study and exactly where they\u2019ll be when they finish. For others, finding the right major can be a journey all its own.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a little how it went for Green Bay native Faythe Brennan, who started out at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh planning to study biology, but graduated in spring 2021 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in sociology.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took two classes in sociology and I fell in love with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI love sciences but I realized I had a passion for sociology and all that the major entails. It was a matter of just finding out what my real passions are in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In July, Brennan will move from Oshkosh to Milwaukee to work in an AmeriCorps program called City Year. Through City Year she\u2019ll spend the upcoming school year in a Milwaukee-area school helping students in a role she described as part mentor, part tutor. It\u2019s a fitting next step considering it was a similar experience that led her to sociology to begin with. In one of her first sociology courses, the class helped with an after-school program at a local school.<\/p>\n
\u201cSociology is very broad and I really like that aspect,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in pursuing higher education, so I knew sociology would be a good ground base for anything more that I did. And I knew I would be doing social service-type work\u2014like with inner-city youth, that type of thing\u2014so I knew sociology would be a really good place for me to start with my education.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Brennan began to steer away from the biological sciences, she found herself getting more and more interested and passionate about issues of social equity and racial justice. In one class, she learned about environmental injustices, like the dumping of waste in low-income communities. Later, another course featured a survey about privilege, providing insight on how others\u2019 circumstances in life differ from her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I was pretty sheltered as a kid,\u201d she said. \u201cI went to a very non-diverse school. \u2026 I didn\u2019t grow up around any people of color in my family, besides my siblings, so I wasn\u2019t really exposed to many things until I got to college and started studying sociology and meeting new people and hearing people\u2019s stories. It really opened my eyes, whether it was articles we read in class, documentaries we watched, to all the things that were happening and experiences people go through every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another memorable bit of experience was a short internship teaching a criminal justice class to prisoners at Oshkosh Correctional Institution. Unfortunately about a month in, the pandemic hit and access to the prison was cut off.<\/p>\n
Brennan also was among the first-ever cohort of Wisconsin Institute on Social Equity (WISE) fellows. WISE was launched last year by associate sociology professor Alphonso Simpson and sociology professor Paul Van Auken and is designed to provide infrastructure for conversations, collaboration, research and action and race, equity, access, diversity and inclusion at UWO and beyond. Students involved get access to training in matters of diversity and community organizing. They also had opportunities to lead workshops and, if not for the pandemic, would have been involved in the start of a new annual conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always supportive of social equity and racial justice and things like that, but I don\u2019t think I really realized how passionate I was about it,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was part of being in college and finding out who you are as a person. I really figured out that\u2019s something I\u2019m still passionate about. Its definitely one of the things that leads my work and what I want to do with my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cSociology helped me realize I want to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
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