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Graduate Student Spotlight

Sierra Blachford, a dedicated student originally from Centralia, Missouri, is set to receive her master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in December of 2024. She proudly earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri and has been a resident of Lake Preston, South Dakota since 2013. 

It was only natural for Blachford to pursue a master’s in interdisciplinary studies after being inspired by a former lecturer from her undergraduate studies. Blachford took a food and wine writing class from Nina Mukerjee Furstenau, a lecturer, author, journalist, and editor, and stated that her “writing and teaching inspired me”. Through the class she was able to explore “identity, culture, sustainability, and much more”, not just reading, writing, and discussing. After taking this class, Blachford decided to follow Furstenau’s career path by aspiring to “land with one foot in the classroom and one foot in the entrepreneurial space”. She first focused on her writing, while still aspiring to incorporate teaching later in her career. 

While keeping “Nina’s unconventional path to teaching in the back of my mind” Blachford said, she focused on writing and published content for various platforms, including social media, press releases, websites, radio ads and many other places. After concentrating on writing, she decided it was time to “return to school and get serious about teaching or to just adjust my plan and stick with marketing”. Upon deciding to go back to school, Blachford chose to continue her studies at ������Ƶ. 

The Interdisciplinary Studies program at ������Ƶ allowed Blachford to have the flexibility of taking classes within two departments “with extremely similar content across different genres” said Blachford. The classes that she took in her program gave her “the opportunity to learn multiple teaching styles and how to structure a variety of class types” she shared. Blachford was able to take courses both online and in-person in Mass Communication and English. While participating in these courses she states “I learned from over a half a dozen professors and experienced many different learning formats” that ultimately “boosted my confidence” when she started teaching English 101 courses.

Blachford’s ability to find someone “whose lifestyle and work inspired and challenged” her was an integral part to her studies. Through the low points she was able to have direction and a boost of confidence because she had inspiration behind her. Blachford shares that she “kept coming back to this idea of being an adjunct lecturer and entrepreneur” that was undoubtedly inspired by her previous lecturer. 

After graduation, Blachford will be a part-time instructor in the English Department here at ������Ƶ. She also has decided that she would like to reach out to her previous lecturer, Nina, and let her know how she inspired Blachford’s decision to apply to ������Ƶ’s graduate school.