Future Badger

Pōsōh,

Thank you for joining me for my final blog post of my undergraduate career. I will be completing this semester with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics with minors in American Indian studies and Spanish, published research in a University of Wisconsin Eau Claire journal titled ASTRA, and four years of experience networking, building lifelong friendships, and learning. Fortunately, this is not the end of my learning career, as this spring I was accepted into the University of Wisconsin Madison's PhD program for Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.

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The Last Semester

This semester has been an incredible way to close my undergraduate career. I started the semester at the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Math, where I presented my research "Community Detection of Indigenous Beaders on Instagram." The conference gave me the confidence I needed to pursue educational policy in a math and Indigenous studies framework. My work was very well received, and I had professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students congratulating me on my accomplishment of intersecting my two passions into one project. Following the week of the conference, I returned to school energized and excited to be finishing my two-year-long research project. That Tuesday, I received an email that I had been accepted at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I traveled to Madison for the admitted students day and was thoroughly impressed by the welcoming students and faculty who were thrilled I was there. From that moment on, I have been organizing moving, renting a new place, and also managing to graduate. Throughout the entirety of this process, I spent three months working on publishing my research that was selected to be presented at the Provost's Honors Symposium during the final weeks of classes. I am extremely proud of all I have accomplished this semester, and I cannot wait for my new beginning.

A cluster from my final research results with pictures corresponding to their affiliated instagram account

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A New Beginning

Now that I have accepted my admission to the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, I cannot wait to begin studying under the supervision of Dr. Ain Grooms. Her work titled "Improving School Attendance Through Collaboration: A Catalyst for Community Involvement and Change," embodies the community-oriented educational work that I dream of being a part of. All of her work focuses on improving outcomes for marginalized communities in the K-12 education system, and I look forward to helping her continue her research and having access to her guidance as I begin working on mine. In the ELPA program, I hope to find solutions to improve math outcomes for Indigenous students in K-12 programming.

A close-up of the t-shirt I received at admitted students day

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The Transition

In the meantime, as I wait for August to hurtle towards me, I will be focusing on taking a much-needed break. I will be traveling to Spain to practice my Spanish, catching up on lost time with my family, and working small jobs to gain savings before I embark on my 5-year journey through ELPA.