Isabelle Kratz '22

My favorite moment with a faculty member was just after all the senior international studies majors got their capstones (which were presentations about their time at the Model United Nations) approved by the International Studies Department. I was the last one to come back in the room, and Dr. Misawa came up to me and congratulated me and thanked me for serving as head delegate, and he asked everyone to applaud me for being the head delegate. There were times where it was difficult, but that round of applause and hug from Dr. Misawa definitely make the experience worthwhile.

One of my best W&J memories was eating dinner with everyone on my JayTerm trip to Prague in May 2019. We went out visiting the sites in the city, and had a late dinner together at a place that served amazing Italian food. The food was fantastic and the conversations were lovely. The whole trip was amazing, but I remember a lot of the details of that night specifically, because it started with a comedy show, included dinner, and ended with exploring the city, seeing the Lennon Wall, and taking amazing photos at sunset.

My favorite class project was a paper for my Renaissance history class that I took in the fall semester of my senior year with Dr. List. The paper detailed the arguments and argument tactics of female writers of the era who were writing in the defense of women. It was the longest paper I ever wrote at the college level, clocking in at a little over 16 pages. It was a few days of intensive writing, but I enjoyed researching and writing the paper because of my love of the topic. The Renaissance is one of my favorite eras, and I jump at any chance I get to do research about women.

I'm most proud of giving a Tom Talk at the Symposium on Democracy kickoff event. If someone had told my first-year self that I would give a Tom Talk, I wouldn't have believed them, because I was so frightened of public speaking then. However, through my many class presentations, I was able to improve my public speaking skills so much that I felt ready and excited to give a Tom Talk. It would have been something that I regretted not doing, so I took the opportunity to talk about a topic that was incredibly important to me: ways for college students to be politically active in the 21st century. Looking back on it now, I feel more proud of giving this talk than my capstone, because I was worried about how the audience would receive my talk (given the political nature of it), but I was very pleased by the positive comments I received afterwards.