What They Have To Say

What impact did CST have on your post-MHC studies, life, profession, or activism?

Kelley Page Jibrell, Class of 1999

Words cannot express the impact that CST has had on my life. I am the Chair of the Board of Directors for an award winning NGO based in Somalia. I am a strategy consultant at IBM where I currently consult US embassies all over the world! Previous clients include the Pentagon, NASA, and Dept. of Energy. I have presented at industry conferences based on my inter-disciplinary beliefs and approaches. My CST major was hands down one of the best decisions of my life. The clients I support require me to have a VERY well-rounded and depth of understanding of government, int'l relations, cultural awareness, analytical thinking and superior presentation and negotiation skills.

My advice: Go for it! Believe in your passion, dream or idea. You may be creating a new trend for the future and paving your own way. Don't worry about, "What will I do when I graduate!" You will excel and try different internships to see how your intellectual quest best applies to different types of work environments.

Trisha Tanner, Class of 2000
CST (and Mount Holyoke) prepared me for the host of challenges and opportunities in store for every job-seeker and professional. The level of independent inquiry required by CST has influenced how I approach the work world--enabling me to chart a career path that has included fields as divergent as technology, nutritional biomedicine, and the arts. Creativity, flexibility, and innovation are valued and supported through CST's multi-disciplinary approach; and these characteristics are vital in today’s global workplace.

Laura Diane Norton-Cruz, Class of 2004
Where to begin? CST allowed me to acquire invaluable skills of critical thinking, analysis, and exploration. As a teacher, these skills helped me to problem-solve the difficulties in my classroom and to zoom out and see these problems within a larger context. They helped me in engaging my colleagues to question biases they held about our students, and in creating feminist solutions to gender bias and gender bullying in the school. As a sexual violence educator and now as a graduate student doing social work and social work related research, my CST skills and breadth of knowledge allows me to infuse a global, cross-historical, critical, theoretical critique into the work I do. This, I believe, makes my work more culturally sensitive and responsive and more able to challenge oppressive power dynamics.

Leora Morinis, Class of 2008
CST gave me a set of critical thinking tools that I am certain will serve me no matter which career and life path I choose. The wonderful guidance I received from the professors with whom I worked the closest gave me a much stronger sense of my areas of interest and of ability, and of what it means to be an academic.