Student Profiles

An Interview with Mandie Smith

Where were you born?
This Chicago-native was born in the ever-popular city of Silver Spring, MD.

Why did you pick Gallaudet?
Where else in the world can I find a school that has so much in common with me? Deaf on the inside and hearing on the outside.

Please be more specific.
Being a CODA, there is really no where else can I can appease my two identities. I consider myself Deaf with the ability to hear, so I yearn everyday for the constant visual communciation that I get here at Gallaudet, not only in conversation but education as well. It's also nice to be able to escape into the hearing world to soothe my ears. Here at Gallaudet, I can get both, and not feel that I am missing one more than the other.

Which GSR class did you take in Fall '09 semester?
Currently, I am taking "GSR 221: Why is Africa struggling?"



Tell us about that class? Does it include any field trip?
The class combines the Foreign Language and the Business disciplines to teach and open our eyes to the economical struggles of Africa, and why they are still struggling even though they have since been emancipated and free to form their own governments. Even though we have only taken one field trip out of the class, we have been taken to many cultural worlds right in our own classroom as we learn about tribes that still practice polygamy to villages that suffer through the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The class is also a service learning class, so we have coordinated fundraisers to help two different organizations in two different countries, and to support Deaf Africans in education, empowerment, and the awareness of HIV/AIDS. (photo: Mask)



What type of projects did you do for class?
We have split the class into 4 different regions; Northern, Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa. In our groups, we study different aspects of the regions, such as general geographical and political information, to Non Government Organizations (NGOs) that have come into support people in those regions. We delve deeper and deeper into understanding African struggles by discovering the stories from within our regions. (photo: African Dancer)