The UW South Asia program graduated nine students in 2015.
Our graduating students have been heavily involved in the university community during their time here. Both Thilini Kahandawaarachchi and Mansi Majithia represented the South Asia program students by serving in the Graduate and Professional Student Senate. Majithia, along with Quinn Clark, Nick Gottschall, and Hannah Haegeland, presented original research at the South Asia Conference of the Pacific Northwest (SACPAN) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Four of our graduates this year are headed into selective PhD programs, in which they will continue research and specialties that they developed during their South Asia MA degree. Both Quinn Clark and Keith Cantú will pursue doctorates in Religious Studies, heading to Columbia University and UC Santa Barbara respectively. Fellow 2015 graduate Kelsey Utne recently began her doctoral work in modern South Asian history at Cornell University. And Jessica Bachman will be staying at UW to pursue her PhD in history.
Many South Asia MA students study language in South Asia, either during the summer or sometimes for a full academic year. Through a Boren Fellowship Hannah Haegeland spent last year in Lucknow, India studying advanced Urdu, before coming back this year to finish her research and coursework. After graduation she began working as a Herbert Scoville Peace Fellow at the Stimson Center’s South Asia Program in Washington, D.C.
Placing high value on developing their language skills, during summer terms students from this class of graduates pursued intensive language studies in Sanskrit, Bangla, Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. They studied at domestic locations (Seattle, Washington and Madison, Wisconsin), as well as internationally (Jaipur, Lucknow, and Calcutta, India, and Lahore, Pakistan).
Congratulations to all of our graduates.