In Their Words: Samantha Stringer

Name: Samantha Stringer

Department: History 

What Scholarship or Award did you receive?

The Rick Hooper Scholarship, which gives aid to those interested in studying in a Muslim majority or Arabic-speaking country.

What year are you (1st year, 3rd year)? 2nd year

College: Merrill 

Where do you call home? Outside of Santa Cruz, I now split my “home time” between Los Angeles, California and Bend, Oregon. 

What is your field of focus? Broadly speaking, I am interested in the post-colonial Middle East and North Africa.

More specifically, I am interested in Israel/Palestine, Egypt, and the history of the relationship between the two.

With all of the choices for college, what made UC Santa Cruz stand out? For me, it had a lot to do with the environment. I was completely entranced by the campus the second I walked on, and knew that it would help to combat any college related stress. 

I was also attracted to the lack of interest in sports games or Greek life that dominated so many of the other schools I toured. I wanted a quieter, calmer environment to spend my four years of study in, and UC Santa Cruz offered this. 

What do you hope to do once you graduate from UC Santa Cruz?

I have two potential plans at the moment. The first being, continuing onto grad school to pursue international law, with the long-term goal of joining a non-profit. At the moment, I am particularly interested in non-profits that are representing victims of torture. The second is to pursue museum studies in my future schooling, with the intention of pursuing a career in the very male-dominated realm of museum direction. 

What does this scholarship/award mean to you? 

With this scholarship, I have enrolled in an eight-week arabic program at the 

University of Jordan in Amman. Learning the language of the area I study will not only be essential for my future history coursework, but will also allow me to expand my career into the Middle East later in life. Potentially more importantly, this travel grant has given me the opportunity to study the language while simultaneously being immersed in the Jordanian culture. I imagine this will be a far more uncomfortable, and thus fulfilling experience as a whole, than studying arabic in a classroom in California might be.