Theorizing the unexpected advocate
Yesim Darici did not pursue a career in advocacy. She is a scientist – a theoretical and experimental physicist with […]
Read it on news.fiu.edu
This woman is quite a thing. I wish I'd gotten to meet her.
I'd joined the Women's Studies program as a certificate candidate partly because I'd garnered nearly enough credits to get one anyway. I don't regret that decision, because I think it's brought me out of my (still quite hard and all-encompassing) shell a bit.
Seeing someone so tenacious who didn't let anyone stand in her way — though it seems she didn't notice anyway — become the director of a program that allows free thought, forward thinking, and embraces the spirit of debate and public speech is very refreshing.
The FIU Instagram account had posted a picture of Dr Darici and that seemed to spawn some heated discussion on the worth of a Women's Studies degree (since the degree program itself is an option as well; the certificate was what I'd gone with, though). It was a little tense, partly because people were borderline throwing flip-off emojis (and even the Instagram account curator had hashtagged "smh").
It embodied the spirit of relatively civil discussion, though, and so that's what makes me a little glad on it. The person who'd initially instigated it, he even seemed to understand a little better why people defended the program (since he saw it, and generally seees things, as if you can't see a direct job correlation to the degree program, the degree program is worthless).
That's rather like my degree, Sociology and Anthropology. I'm nowhere near a professional anthropologist, nor am I a linguist officially. I do put my skills to work, and they help me as far as understanding people and the world. And then my certificate has helped me in expressing those thoughts a little more cogently.
So, thank you, FIU, for renewing my mind.
And now that I'm working, I can actually give back sometime relatively soon.
