Honors courses like Associate Professor of Advertising Dana Saewitz’s Media and Society class are meant to challenge and expand student’s thinking as they enter university life. When communication studies senior Grace Rogers finished her final project for this course during her first semester of her freshman year — a content analysis evaluating Asian-American representation on American television — she felt something within her ignite. Fast forward to three years later, and Rogers is thrilled to be pursuing a career in academia following that very same thread: Asian-American representation. Currently, she is preparing to be a Diamond Peer Teacher for Professor Scott Gratson’s CMST 1111: Communication and Public Life course during Spring 2021, and recently served as a panelist and student representative to the Women’s Caucus at the National Communication Association (NCA)’s annual conference this past November.
 
Impressed with her work in Media and Society, Professor Saewitz encouraged Rogers to apply to TERF-CrEWS, now called the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and eventually to the NCA’s annual conference. Though she was relieved to have friend, colleague and fellow Klein student Rachel Berson by her side, Rogers says that both she and Berson accidentally applied to the conference’s master’s and PhD division instead of the undergraduate division. Still, both were thrilled when they were invited to give poster presentations anyway. 
 
“It was really overwhelming, honestly,” says Rogers. “It was exciting because I had a couple friends who were going through it with me — Rachel Berson is a really good friend of mine, and so we did basically all three of our conferences together — and that was nice, to have someone with me.”
 
While at the conference, Rogers headed to the Women’s Caucus to hear a panel on imposter syndrome — a concept she had become increasingly familiar with during her time in the graduate division at the very same conference. It was at the Women’s Caucus, she says, that she gained confidence after learning the value of her student perspective, another element propelling her toward her present as a student representative in the Caucus and her future in academia.
 
“I always go into these things being nervous because I am still an undergrad, and I am on the young side, so it’s fairly hard to get credibility sometimes because you’re surrounded by these people who are, you know, experts,” Rogers says. “The women in that group have been particularly supportive of me sharing my thoughts and opinions because I bring the perspective of the students that they teach currently.”
 
Along with preparing for last month’s panel, Rogers has been working on applications for a master’s degree, with the eventual goal of receiving a PhD. She has applied to 10 programs so far, including Klein’s MA in Media Studies and Production and a Fulbright application to Chengchi University in Taiwan’s Master’s in International Communication Studies. She says this particular Fulbright would not only coincide with her research interests in cross-cultural representation, but also with her heritage, being half Taiwanese-American herself. Plus, she adds, the program is taught entirely in English.
 
“I thought it would be an interesting way to get to connect with that part of my heritage a little bit more, because I’ve never been to Taiwan and I don’t know much about it other than what my grandparents have told me,” she says.
 
Rogers is finishing out her undergraduate career strong, serving as a Diamond Peer Teacher for Professor Scott Gratson’s CMST 1111: Communication and Public Life course, an opportunity she believes will prepare her for the many academic roles such as a teaching assistant and — hopefully — professor that likely lie in her future. Whether she’s assisting in an undergraduate course or eventually defending her PhD dissertation, Grace Rogers clearly has a drive for knowledge that distinguishes her from her colleagues and peers.

“Grace is a scholarly phenomenon!” Gratson says. “She is a student leader and a brilliant scholar, whose incredible personality is only matched by her never-ending drive for learning. She is an academic personified, and I am thrilled to have had the chance to work with her.”