Emily Jensen Named American Studies Student of the Year

The English Department named Emily Jensen the American Studies Student of the Year for 2023-2024. The American Studies Committee said, “Emily Jensen, who focused her American Studies degree in the social sciences, exemplifies the interdisciplinary dimensions of the program through her exemplary coursework and internship at the Museum of Idaho, where she used her research and writing skills to develop a drop-in tour program and accompanying training guide to help make the museum's collections more open and accessible to the public.” 

Many things drew Emily into American Studies, including the opportunity to learn about a lot of different areas in-depth. Emily commented, “I sometimes joke that I'm getting my ‘well-rounded person degree’ because I feel like American Studies teaches you to see the big picture of things and be able to look at issues from lots of different perspectives.” 

Emily noted that one of the most important opportunities while earning her undergraduate degree was taking classes from incredible professors. She said, “Almost every day of the week for four years, I got to sit in a room with so many different highly-educated and renowned members of their individual fields. You get to go to class every day and listen to and ask questions of someone whose name is on groundbreaking research that is changing the world.” 

Emily has many different routes she can go down for the future. She said, “I'm going to work — hopefully within the museum field — until my fiancé can finish his master's program, and then who knows, maybe I'll miss USU so much I'll come back for a master's!”