CATEGORIES: News & Events, Student Spotlight
By Trinity Jones
Rachel O’Brien is a graduating senior from Stemwood, Illinois, with a double major in Women’s and Gender Studies and Journalism. Having decided on this double major during her first year of college, she sees what she learned in Women’s and Gender Studies intersecting with her career in many ways.
“As a journalist, I hope to tell stories about people and their lives,” says O’Brien. “By being more informed from my WGS classes, I’ll be able to tell these stories more accurately and with deeper understanding.”
Not waiting until after graduation to apply what she’s learned in her WGS classes, she incorporated her knowledge as an editor for Ethos Magazine. She worked on articles such as How Sustainable is ISU?; Cyber Sex Work, a look into the lives of cybersex workers; and Sex Trafficking at ISU, an article informing readers of accounts of students who have been victims of trafficking and ways to combat it.
“I ran Ethos for two years, and diversity was a really big thing for me when it came to what articles we produced,” says O’Brien. “Being the editor, I tried to make the publication as inclusive as possible and write stories that were not being put into other student media outlets. I also tried to do this while letting my writers write stories they had pitched and were interested in.”
Rachel has not only been impacted in her education and career goals by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program but in her personal life as well.
“WGS has impacted my life in a lot of ways,” says O’Brien. “It has changed the way I think about a lot of things and taught me to think critically about the world around me. WGS has taught me a lot about the world and the people that live in it.”