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Sachelle Ford

My family and friends regularly ask me if I regret attending Oxford instead of heading directly to Emory. I always tell them that attending Oxford helped me understand what it means to be truly educated, and now that I am in my senior year at Emory, this feeling has intensified. At Oxford, students are encouraged to become engaged with the material in ways unparalleled at other institutions.

During my first semester, the Theory Practice/Service learning component of my Women’s Studies class required that I spend two hours a week teaching English to immigrant women at a local technical college. While I spent only a short amount of time interacting with the women, the experience opened up new ways of thinking about the application of the discipline. As a student, I constantly wonder what responsibility the academy has to the larger community and how we can make what we learn in class relevant to those without the privilege of our education.

Oxford has taught me that an educated individual is not the person who has mastered the theory of a discipline but rather the one who has found ways to apply that theory to the benefit of the greater community.