Expanding His Horizons
Undergraduate Anthony Shields's college experiences have helped him become a critical thinker and a leader
Learning doesn't only happen in the classroom. Just ask Anthony Shields, who has done more to expand his horizons since he started at the University in 2009 than some do all their lives.
Shields graduated from the St. Paul Open School and decided to go to the University both to stay in the city and to see what it was like to attend a large public school. His Critical Moments in Human Stories First Year Inquiry Course in CEHD was the perfect beginning. For its capstone project, his group created a play based on a topic from the book, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines—which all first year CEHD students read last year.
“Our play was about someone who had to overcome huge obstacles to achieve an education,” Shields says. “The point was how every human story has importance, and it was definitely a first step for me in finding my voice and having people listen to what I had to say.”
Shields lost no time in developing his own stories. During the winter break that year, he went on a trip sponsored by TRiO Student Support Services to Akumal, Mexico—about 100 miles south of Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula. Shields and his fellow travelers explored the land and culture and learned how tourism affects the environment.
His interest was piqued still more by his second trip, to Cape Town, South Africa, during winter break this year. Shields spent three weeks learning, volunteering, touring, and tracing the footsteps of social change in the wrenching days of apartheid.
“We visited townships, the low-income, poverty-stricken areas where during apartheid most of the blacks and colored people were moved,” he says. “We had to go back in history so we could understand the current state and situation of South Africa.”
Shields was already interested in anthropology as a potential major, but it was during the South Africa trip that he found he was particularly interested in the cultural aspects of anthropology.
“There are practical majors, like journalism, that teach you a particular skill, and there are theoretical majors that allow you to think and change your thoughts about the world,” he says. “I want to be a critical thinker and challenge my beliefs, and anthropology is having that effect on me.”
Shields is also building his leadership skills as a board member for TRiO. “Being on the board is good experience and allows me to take a leadership role,” he says. “But after TRiO took me to Mexico, I also wanted to give back—both to the students and the organization.”
Story by Holly Dolezalek | May 2011
