Being a social justice major has been incredible and I’ve learned so much during my time in the program. This major has either educated me or significantly expanded my knowledge on topics such as: social structures and institutions, power dynamics, privilege, oppression, feminism, racism, gender, sexuality, ability, religion, intersectionality, and different forms of justice. Additionally, I was pushed throughout the program to continuously think about the questions: What is justice?, Who decides what is justice?, Do we work within the current system to create justice or create a new system? These are ideas, theories, and tools that I will use and will significantly help me in my future career by making me think about all the components that go into social justice work. 

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I chose to pursue a degree in social justice because I really enjoyed taking the intro course and felt inspired by the content we discussed. From learning about institutions, systems of power, inequalities, social movements, activism, and social change, I was constantly intrigued. I specifically enjoyed learning about the civil rights era and how so many of the movements going on during that time were similar to each other in their activist tactics and strategies. I had never learned about this era outside of the dominant narrative I had been taught in high school, and as a Black women, I liked learning about a part of my history. I also felt like the major paired extremely well with my other major, sociology, and that the two majors combined would give me an amazing framework to use in the future when working alongside and helping diverse groups of people. Further, the major appeared to be very open and flexible and a degree that I could make my own. I was fascinated by the idea of having a concentration area where I could focus on any area of social justice that I wanted and be able to pick the classes within that concentration. Lastly, I felt that social justice was so broad and applicable to various disciplines that I would be able to get a job in any field.   

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  Within the social justice program I developed an expertise in reproductive justice. This expertise developed through coursework I’ve taken, an internship, an independent study, and through my general interest in birthwork, families, and children. A course I took during my time at Hamline titled The Politics of Reproduction and Parenting is what first opened my eyes to the world of reproductive justice. That class made me think about reproduction beyond the pro-life vs pro-choice argument and how reproductive justice is not just about someone’s right to have a child or not have a child, but the right to parent, and be able to provide for one’s child. Most importantly I learned that reproductive justice is intersectional, it is impacted by one’s gender, sexuality, ability, class, race, and so many other factors. In addition to this course, my internship at Everyday Miracles solidified my decision to go into reproductive justice work. This internship has given me so much exposure to the birth community through interacting with clients, working on projects, going to events, and meeting experienced members of the birth community. I'm excited to continue my internship with Everyday Miracles through the end of my senior year and continue to acquire knowledge. In correspondence with my internship, I had the opportunity to do an independent study and conduct my own research on a reproductive justice issue. This research gave me hands on experience and made me feel more connected to the birth community because I was doing important and essential work. These experiences throughout the social justice program not only cultivated my expertise in reproductive justice, but challenged, motivated, and pushed me to continue bettering myself .   

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 I also expanded my professional skills during the social justice program by becoming a stronger writer, better public-speaker, more articulate with my arguments, a faster reader, and learned to think more critically. This expansion happened through various readings, research papers, presentations, and intriguing class discussions. Additionally, I gained skills in participant observation, qualitative interviewing, and ethnographic research that I was able to use in my own research to analyze my qualitative data and discover findings. As for my personal development, the social justice major has made me become a better nonverbal and oral communicator, more extroverted, more confident in myself as an individual and in expressing my views towards issues that are important to me. In numerous ways this major has pushed me into the person that I am today.   

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In the future I hope to expand on my public speaking, critical thinking, and time-management skills. I plan to continue to educate myself whether that be through formal education or by continuing to acquire knowledge in other ways. I strive to keep growing myself as an individual and always push myself to be the best person I can be. I  want to continue to meet new people from similar and different interest areas and keep expanding my network and challenging myself. After graduation, I plan to get a full time job in my concentration area and complete my training to become a certified birth doula. I hope to one day eventually become a midwife and be able to open up my own practice where I can help other Black women and hopefully have a direct impact on decreasing birth disparities. Additionally, in the future I would love to open up my own non profit organization that aims to specifically help teen moms prepare for birth and deal with other challenging aspect of their life like education, employment, housing, etc. My social justice training has prepared me for these plans because it has given me the framework and mindset that I need to understand the people I will be helping in the future as well as think of solutions from a just perspective.