Profiles of Current Graduate Students
Heather Bender chose to complete a Master of Business Administrations degree from the University of Tampa because it was a “logical choice” promising monetary benefit. Yet, as she progressed through that program, she felt increasingly uneasy about her direction. Realizing that she was extremely inquisitive about social interactions she decided to pursue a M.A. degree in Sociology. She is interested in improving education in both developing and developed nations, improving cultural awareness and understanding how environmental demands can be fulfilled within societal constraints.
With a major in Latin American Studies, Natalie Deckard received her B.A. degree from Columbia University (New York City). Her Afro-Cuban and Italian ethnic heritage, as well as extensive time spent in Spain, the Dominican Republic and Switzerland, has led her to interests revolving around a broad question: “What happens when traditionally distinct peoples mesh, or at least co-exist? How does ‘not fitting in’ affect the supposed outliers, and how does it affect society as a whole to have people who may be separate, may be integrated, or may be somewhere in between?”
After graduating from USF with a major in Sociology and minor in Women’s Studies, Cheryl DeFlavis joined AmeriCorps VISTA and for the past six months has been working for the National Coalition for the Homeless. She believes this experience “has had the most significant impact” on her development as a future sociologist because it has helped her to “gain a greater understanding of the interlocking and overlapping nature of social problems.”
Originally majoring in Statistics, David Hudgins put himself through USF by working as a systems administrator. Yet he writes a sociology class “exposed me to many ideas which challenged my world view in such significant ways that I couldn’t stop wanting to learn more.” As a child, he lived with his mother, a RN working as a missionary in Malawi, Africa. She taught him to follow his passion and Sociology is the nature of his passion.
Ryan Huff graduated from USF with a major in psychology and his interests are in that space between psychology and sociology called social psychology. As he writes, “Although a sociologist may traditionally look for the outward forces affecting a situation before examining the inner forces, and a psychologist may do the exact opposite, in the end, they must account for all of the same sources of influence.” He has had extensive training in research methods and statistics and his current interests include an eclectic mix of topics including religion’s impact on moral development, the importance of social integration, and the ways technology shapes human behavior.
Although Nicole Latora originally set law school as her career path, she was increasingly uncertain about it. She never has questioned her decision to rather study sociology, obtaining her B. A. degree from USF. Indeed, when people ask her why she wants to study sociology, she replies “what else is there to study?” Her interests lie in globalization, work and organizations, agriculture and rural studies, the environment and community development.
Graduating from Colombia College (Chicago) with a major in Film &Video with a concentration in screenwriting, Joe LoSasso believes that film studies “isn’t all that dissimilar from Sociology. One might say, simply put, that a writer must understand the personalities, motivations, culture and environment in order to craft a plausible story.” With a personal interest in encouraging long term social change, he has many substantive interests including developing programs to aid the transition of legal immigrants entering the United States from refugee camps.
After receiving her B. A. in International Affairs from Florida State University, Jessica Merrick entered the Women’s Studies M.A. program at USF and then transferred to Sociology when, according to her, it became obvious that “one can be both a feminist and a sociologist at the same time,” and “the concepts I gravitate towards the most are sociological ones.” Now in her second year of graduate study, her thesis will explore the strategies, objectives, and assumed knowledge employed to build and maintain intentional communities of lesbians and gays.
With a degree in Sociology and Human Services, Anastacia Schulhoff graduated from Black Hills State University in South Dakota and chose USF because she wanted to live in the hub of culture, diversity and new experiences. She has been involved in extensive volunteer activities including organizing food drives, volunteering at a homeless mission and worked with elderly and developmentally disabled people. A second year student, her thesis is focusing on exploring how Native Americans understand their identities.
As an undergraduate in Sociology at USF Mark Settembrino was employed as a Court Program Assistant for the Juvenile Diversion Program in Tampa. As a second year student, he now is drawing from that experience for his thesis which is examination of how volunteers measure success among first time juvenile offenders in a court alternative program
Originally from Islamabad, Pakistan, Azka Tanveer received her undergraduate degree in economics and management from the London School of Economics. She has worked on a wide variety of research projects in Islamabad such as: Monitoring gender-related news, studying the role of institutions and communities in environmental degradation in northern Pakistan, and compiling the CARE international overview of earthquake related efforts. With a broad interest in social psychology, she is interested in cities and communities, in particular the cultural and ethnic grouping and the construction of group identity as well as the socialization of second-generation American-Muslims.
Herself a second generation immigrant, Herrica Telus is interested in exploring issues of immigration and identity, particularly for Black, West Indian immigrants. Graduating from the USF Psychology Honors Program in 2008, she has been working as an Americorps teacher at a middle school, teaching writing, literature and computers to students in the 5th through 7th grade.