Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
I love big cities! Urban Studies is the perfect interdisciplinary major because it allows me to study cities through a number of different academic frameworks.  

What I like best about Urban Studies: The emphasis on conducting our own original research

Favorite class / professor (and why): Intro to Urban Design with Gerry Gast

Favorite book (and why): Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser

Extracurriculars: Director Stanford Speakers Bureau

Our future lies in our destiny!

What I like best about Urban Studies: The strong community of a small but ambitious program, excellent advising, a comprehensive core, and the undying commitment to social change.

Favorite class / professor (and why): The Archeology of Modern Urbanism / Barb Voss exposed me to a completely new way of understanding the city through material culture. Barb is also an inspiring and dedicated teacher.

Favorite book (and why): Calvino’s Invisible Cities because it expresses so well the symbolic nature of the city.

Career goal / Future plans: Historic preservation, inner-city economic development, immigrant and labor rights advocacy, municipal government, or maybe something else entirely.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): languages, Russian literature

Extracurriculars: Undergraduate Senate, Habla ESL tutoring, promoting student arts

Something else you should know about me: Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. (Whitman)

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
I decided to major in Urban Studies because it involves everything that I am interested in: art, social justice, history, education, people and CITIES!

What I like best about Urban Studies: The advisors and counselors.

Favorite book (and why): I have way too many favorite books. Among my top ten are Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon and The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Their writing is precise and pretty much, illuminating.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minor in Film and Media Studies

Something else you should know about me: I love old-school movie houses.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: This major has always seemed to be the most engaging.  I love being encouraged to participate in service-learning courses, to go out and learn through internships, to be expected to have interdisciplinary breadth.  This is a major that is grounded in the real world.

What I like best about Urban Studies: My incredibly inspiring and fun peers.

Favorite class / professor (and why): The Community Planning Workshop taught by Bethany Steiner allowed me to get off-campus and really dive into everyday social change.  Our project team worked on both empowering and enabling families in Redwood City to walk and bike to school.  And our reflection time made us really challenge and think about everything we did along the way.  It was an incredible learning experience.

Career goal / Future plans:  Hopefully I will contribute to an improved environment for my hometown, New York.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
Above all else I feel as though my mantra or overriding virtue in life is efficiency. It always frustrates me when I notice a system that isn't working as well as it optimally could or that society isn't making the best use of its resources. Through majoring in Urban Studies and, more specifically, pursuing a career in urban planning, I believe that I can contribute toward making the world not only more sustainable but also just a better place to live in.

Favorite class / professor (and why): Within the major my favorite class had to be Gerry Gast's Introduction to Urban Design. I really enjoyed how Professor Gast often mixed in interesting real world perspectives and anecdotes into the curriculum and that the class was centered around project based learning and evaluation.

Extracurriculars: Stanford Club Volleyball

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: When I graduated high school I interned with a non-profit that developed houses for low income families. Although my role was not to work directly in designing houses or to decide where the next housing project, I was community building with the communities that were placed in these housing complexes. I mainly worked with youth creating youth councils that would empower youth to create change in their communities. There were a lot of issues that just one neighborhood faced such as lack of public transportation, safe sidewalks, prostitution issues and many more. I never thought that the internship was going to have so much impact that now I will be majoring in Urban Studies. 

What I like best about Urban Studies: I like the flexibility of the program and the support that one can find through out ones undergraduate career.

Favorite class / professor (and why): I like many of my classes especially Urban Underclass and Introduction to Urban Design. Both of the instructors were good at making sure we learned the main concepts of the class. I have never done so much reading for a class than I did for Urban Underclass. For Urban Design I was able to think critically about neighborhoods and how they function. I worked in a team to design a project that would help revitalize a neighborhood.

Favorite book (and why): One of my favorite books is There Are No Children Here. This book made me cry as I was reading it because it was telling a real story of a family that was struggling for survival in Chicago. The story was like putting a face and a name to all the injustices that we read about history of the underclass. 

Career goal / Future plans: International Law and Public Policy

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Major Iberian and Latin American Cultures

Extracurriculars: Co- President of SEEDS, Environmental Advocate, Community Organizing, and I am part of the board of directors of Proyecto Itzaes.

Something else you should know about me: I love to dance and to smile. I do not like living in big cities but I definitely enjoy learning on how urban areas function and hoping one day I will help improve the lives of those who are not living in good conditions because they are minorities or under-represented in an urban area.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I feel like cities are where change happens and that excites me.

What I like best about Urban Studies: it has the perfect balance of structure and flexibility

Favorite book (and why): The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan for its unique perspective on human plant interactions.

Career goal / Future plans: Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minor in Latin American Studies

Extracurriculars: Gardening and Hiking

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
Diversity! In Urban Studies I'm able to take a multitute of immensely interesting courses on urban issues.

What I like best about Urban Studies: Similar to why I chose Urban Studies, it is a community of people with bery diverse, city-focused issues that tell stories of how the majority of the world's population experience their surroundings.

Favorite class / professor (and why): I took my favorite class in Cape Town - Adult Learning and Development: Service-Learning in the South African Context. It offered a changed perspective on my role in development as an individual as well as the role of developed nations in the developing world.

Favorite Book (and why): Lolita. Nabokov's command of the English language is incredible.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minoring in Economics.

Extracurriculars: ASPIRE, SUSS, Urbanter

Something else you should know about me: My favorite color is green.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I majored in Urban Studies because I was interested in the theories of Sociology, however, I wanted to find a way that I can learn them applied in urban settings, and Urban Studies gave me that opportunity.

What I like best about Urban Studies: My favorite part of the Program in Urban Studies is the required internship, which ensures that I find experience in something that will assist me in my future goals. My internship during Summer 2010 changed my life!

Favorite class / professor (and why): My favorite class has been Ethics & Politics of Public Service with Rob Reich. It's a given that Urban Studies majors on the Social Change track want to help people in some way. EPOPS challenges you to analyze how and why you want to help and to make sure that it is the right way and with the right reasons, whatever those may be.

Career goal / Future plans: Something related to mental health, or public health in general.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: How our cities function has a profound effect on our environment, economy, and well-being.

What I like best about Urban Studies: It’s given me the flexibility to create a hands-on project-driven undergraduate education in urban planning.

Favorite class / professor (and why): Urban Design Studio with Danno Glanz.  He’s just an awesome dude and it’s great real-world design experience.  Global Human Geography with Martin Lewis is also awesome.

Favorite book (and why): Guns, Germs, and Steel. 

Career goal / Future plans: Work on something interesting and meaningful as a planner

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Economics, Geography, History

Extracurriculars: Devout Stanford football fan

Something else you should know about me: My favorite computer game growing up was Sim City (big surprise)

For more information:www.danielaaronjacobson.com

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I chose the Urban Studies major because I want to be able to make important changes in the lives of people who need it most, like those from my very own community.

What I like best about Urban Studies: The thing I like best about Urban Studies is the interdisciplinary nature of the major. I can take a wide variety of classes in many subjects, and it all applies to my major.

Favorite class / professor (and why):URBANST 131: Social Innovation and the Social Entrepreneur facilitated by Melanie Edwards. This speaker series was my first course in Urban Studies and opened my eyes to the many opportunities available to start one’s own social venture.

Favorite book (and why): There Are No Children Here is my favorite book thus far because it is a very real chronicle of life for some American citizens and it peers into lives of people that much of the world would much rather ignore.

Career goal / Future plans: Ultimately I would like to go into nonprofit management or education.

Extracurriculars: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, dv8 hip hop group co-director, Caribbean Students Association

Something else you should know about me: A good laugh outweighs any bad.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I love cities and care deeply about making them better places to live and work for lower income communities and underrepresented populations.

What I like best about Urban Studies: Conversations with Edgardo about art activism, late night econ psets and studying with Kazi, and imagining and sketching out city blocks with Erica

Favorite class / professor (and why): Cities in Comparative Perspective, Professor Ebron and Angel are beyond knowledgeable and the course reading was well chosen (especially Righteous Dopefiend)

Favorite book (and why): Drown by Junot Diaz- the vignettes are incredibly honest and thought provoking about how we engage in relationships

Extracurriculars: tribal fusion belly dance, muay thai

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies:
I have always wanted to combine my interest in urban art and activism with my interest agriculture and food systems. Urban Studies allows me to do this while providing a strong interdisciplinary foundation in design, sociology and more. 

What I like best about Urban Studies: I love the diversity of styles and interests found within the department. The eclectic crowd makes for great team projects, wonderful conversations and an empowering hope for future collaboration.

Favorite book (and why): I just finished This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and was struck by its ability to depict the complexities of colonialism through fiction.

Career goals/Future plans: After graduation, I plan on spending two years farming in a small town in Guatemala where my grandpa left a small plot of land. Beyond that, I hope to work in city farming or high school education in Minneapolis, New Orleans, Brazil or China. 

Other academic interests (majors,minors):Minor in Chinese.

Extracurriculars: Stanford Labor Action Coalition, Habla English tutoring, taekwondo

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I am not sure what I want to do when I grow up, but every Urban Studies course that I’ve taken seems to introduce me to a new possibility.  After Intro to Urban Studies I considered architecture, after Urban Underclass I was inspired to be an educator in urban America, and after Sustainable Cities I tossed around the idea of working in local government. The urban environment is where my interests lie and I want to fully explore all the possibilities before I go to work there.

What I like best about Urban Studies: A side-effect of the interdisciplinary major is a classroom full of people with a range of interests. I love working on a project or discussing a topic with classmates who think differently than I do and are in the major because their passions are different from mine. This is basically the reality of every urban studies class I’ve taken or major social event (woo! woo!) I’ve attended—and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the urbs community J!

Favorite class / professor (and why): Urban Underclass/Rosenfeld: Oh, boy. I’ve never read so much in such a short amount of time in my life (except maybe with the Harry Potter Series), but when it was all said and done, the reading and sections and even the exams were all worth it. The urban underclass, the poorest of the poor in America, is not a topic that you can understand by reading a one-page article in a magazine; it took ten weeks to understand the way America works (or doesn’t) in relation to its most disadvantaged citizens. I constantly reference what I learned in this class and I wish it were required for all Stanford students.

Favorite book (and why): My Friend Leonard This novel is not related to Urban Studies (although some of it takes place in Chicago where urban studies was developed), but it is just a wonderful story about life and relationships.

Career goal / Future plans: Unknown…for now

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Not a minor, but I love foreign languages!

Extracurriculars: Club basketball, Tutoring for Community, and Urbanter

Something else you should know about me: Settler’s of Catan is the best!

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I prefer doing to studying, and Urban Studies is a field of action.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Public Policy minor, interest in homelessness

Extracurriculars: In my spare time I enjoy writing poetry, re-reading kids’ books, and eating.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: Urban Studies teaches you how and why people live the way they do, and how you can change that in the future.

What I like best about Urban Studies: It includes all aspects of life: art, physical space, education, culture, architecture, history, politics, and so many more.

Favorite class / professor (and why): Sustainable Cities (Urban Studies 164) with Hilary Boudet because it incorporated service learning and our final deliverable will be implemented. It was interesting to see the difference between the theory we learned in class and the practical obstacles, both political and otherwise, that changed our projects’ courses.

Favorite book (and why): Too many. Sophie’s Choice, Heart of Darkness, Notes from Underground, and anything by Studs Terkel. I like books that take me out of modern times, particularly out of the United States.

Career goal / Future plans: Urban design or planning with an environmental focus

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Minoring in Modern Language

Extracurriculars: Stanford Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars (SUSS), Club Lacrosse, Green Living Council (GLC), Urbanter, Haas Center for Public Service 

Something else you should know about me: I live for travel and good food.

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: I’ve always wanted to be both the engineer and the politician. Urban Studies is that crossroad between the two for me. I’m able to study problems of a city on the physical and social level. I chose to major in Urban Studies, with my ultimate goal of a career in environmental policy, because it provides a holistic approach to solving urban issues.

What I like best about Urban Studies: I love the flexibility and diversity of the major. I can take classes in public policy, civil engineering, sociology, etc. I’ve been able to take a variety of courses that have enriched my experience and academic career. 

Favorite class / professor (and why): Sustainable Cities/Hilary Boudet. I loved this class because of the community service learning aspect of it. Not only did I have a team of incredibly diverse individuals, we were given the task of producing deliverables for Redwood City. Seeing our work had the potential of being implemented changed the experience drastically for me.

Favorite book (and why): The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera has a magical way with words.

Career goal / Future plans: Environmental Policy/Sustainability/Urban Development

Extracurriculars: The Stanford Daily, Chi Omega, Stanford Tour Guide

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: A huge number of the classes offered at Stanford that address human rights and social movements are housed in the Urban Studies department.  For me, it is those classes that first drew me into Urban Studies and have kept me loving the Urban Studies program ever since.    

What I like best about Urban Studies: The people.  Urban studies kids and professors seem to really want to make the world a better place.  That’s such a refreshing and exciting environment to be a part of. 

Favorite class / professor (and why): Food and Community with Page Chamberlain.  The class consists of gleaning fruit from trees across campus, gorilla gardening, and working on an urban farm in San Francisco.  I’m pretty sure that class cannot be more fun than that. 

Favorite book (and why): It’s a tie between The Things They Carried (a straight up beautiful book), Beyond Mountains (inspirational/personally challenging), and The Second Sex (interesting and empowering).   

Career goal / Future plans: Maybe I’ll try and be an environmental lawyer.  Maybe I’ll work with some non-profits who work to address food systems issues.  Or maybe something else.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Philosophy (minor)

Extracurriculars: Students for a Sustainable Stanford, Stanford Gleaning Project, The Stanford Farm Project, SPOON, and Produce KM at Synergy

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: It combines all my interests into one convenient major, and is the only undergraduate education degree at The Stan.

What I like best about Urban Studies: Knowing where and how I’ll be able to apply in my life everything I learn in class.

Favorite class / professor (and why): EDUC 116X, Service Learning as an Approach to Teaching

Favorite book (and why): The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Read it to a kid.

Career goal / Future plans: President of the United States

Extracurriculars: Fleet Street, recruiting for the Americorps and City Year

Something else you should know about me: Did I mention I’m running for President of the United States?

Why I'm majoring in Urban Studies: The design of the habitats and communities we live in structure our entire life. How cool is that?

What I like best about Urban Studies: There are so many options!

Favorite class / professor (and why): Either Global Human Geography 106a and b with Martin Lewis- I never knew how much I didn’t know about the world; I think I reference something I learned from those classes at least once a day, or Education 103b with Arnetha Ball, if you want to be inspired to be an urban school teacher, this seminar will do it.

Other academic interests (majors, minors): Drama, Education

Extracurriculars: Jumpstart, Alliance Streetdance, seeing as much theater as possible