Sophia Garbarino is a graduating Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies B.A. who also has a second major in Sociology and a Health, Medicine, and Society Minor. As graduation approaches, WGSS seniors reflect on their time in the department.

What made you pursue a Women’s and Gender Studies (WST) major/minor?

I enrolled in WST 103 with Professor Montegary in the second semester of my freshman year. My 101 fellow is also a WGSS major and talked to me about the program after I decided to stop pursuing the pre-med track. During our first class, we dove right into learning about critical feminist theory, something I’d never been exposed to before. It completely blew my mind! As someone who loves abstract thinking and is passionate about rectifying injustices, I felt like I’d finally found what was missing in my entire academic career up until that point. Nothing in school had really made me think about complex big ideas before that, but intersectional feminism now allowed me to explore concepts without fear of being wrong, because a “right” answer is always subjective.

What was your experience like in the WGSS department?

In complete honesty, I genuinely liked all of the WGSS professors I’ve had. Each one clearly cares about their students – not just their academic performance defined by letters and numbers, but the actual person behind the grades as well. I love the intimate seminar-style classes, which partly comes from the WGSS department being small compared to other programs at Stony Brook, but mostly comes from the students themselves. Everyone has something meaningful to contribute to the conversation. WGSS is also, arguably, the most interdisciplinary field in existence (to date). Everyone can find something that interests them while applying a WGSS lens.

What do you plan on doing in the future?

I plan to go straight to graduate school in the fall to earn a Master’s in Public Health. The courses I’ve taken for the GSPH specialization track have really solidified my interest in public health, and I hope to continue my education and make a real difference in the realm of health inequity. I’m not sure which school I’ll attend yet, but hopefully somewhere sunny.