ABOUT ME:
Hello! My name is Anjali McDaniel, and I am a senior, Language and International Health Major with an emphasis in Spanish at Clemson University. I am originally from Irmo, SC and I graduated from Dutch Fork High School in May 2020. During my time in high school, I learned about my love for community service and volunteered with many service organizations such as Harvest Hope, Families Helping Families, Walk Like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), and other great groups. Some of my passions include traveling, spending time with family and friends, writing, hiking, and painting. Since childhood, I have traveled all over the world with my family. I have been to India, London, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and many other countries. Traveling from a young age and gaining my passion for volunteering in my community led me to choose Language and International Health as my major at Clemson University. For a long time, Clemson has been one of my dream schools. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to study here and to find a lifelong career path. I have completed classes such as anatomy and physiology, chemistry, biology, Spanish, and many public health classes such as Global Health, Health Research and Evaluation, Human Health and Disease, and Epidemiology. Through my major, I also had the opportunity to study abroad in Argentina where I went for 6 months and took 18 credit hours of Spanish classes, and also had an internship in both a private and public healthcare center. This experience was very rewarding and helped me gain insight to a new culture and find a passion for the Spanish language. I am now fluent in the language and am excited to continue my journey learning more. I believe the classes that I will complete at Clemson will help prepare me for my postgraduate studies, and I would really like to use what I learn during my time here to help people in the most beneficial way possible! One thing that I really value about my major is that not only did I learn about the medical side of health, but I also learned and experienced the humanities side of healthcare that not many students are exposed to. It is my goal to implement a more humanities aspect to health in my future career and I really feel prepared to do so after studying at Clemson. Thanks for visiting my website! My contact information is below if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy!!
CLUTURE AND LITERATURE ARTIFACT
For my first artifact, I am submitting an essay that I wrote during my study abroad in Argentina in 2023 for my “History of Latin America” class. For this assignment, we were allowed to select any topic related to Latin American history and then write a 2-3 page essay on this topic. I chose to write about the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti because I knew this would be a unique topic and I also had previously known about it from a “Global Health” class I took during my time at Clemson. During my work, I learned how to find resources that would help support my claims about the Duvaliers and I also had to overcome the language barrier. This was one of the first major papers I needed to complete during my time in Argentina, and it had to be all in Spanish. I practiced my Spanish reading and writing skills, and I even learned patience, overcoming language barriers, citing sources in Spanish, and why it is important to learn about the history of other countries. Many people do not know of the horrors and deaths that Haiti faced during the time of the Duvaliers, so that is another reason why this topic was important to me and encouraged me to learn more history about other countries other than my own. I definitely want to continue to learn and grow my writing skills in Spanish, so this was a great opportunity for me to practice and learn the first steps of how to write a formal paper in a different language. This assignment was one of the most challenging that I had during my time in Argentina, but it was very interesting and I know it was important to learn these writing and research skills to apply to my future career of learning Spanish professionally. I made an A on this paper and my professor was very interested in this topic as well. I am glad I get to share my work with you all!
For my second artifact, I decided to submit my work on Eugenia Almeida who is a famous poet from Argentina. I did this assignment for my literature class in Argentina. I think this work shows both a cultural and literature aspect of some of the work I did while abroad. For this project, I had to research a poet from Argentina, find and read a work of theirs, explain that in a summary, and then compare their work with another author from the United States. I learned a lot through this assignment. I had to read and interpret a poem in Spanish, and then relate it to a work in the US, so I was able to practice my reading and writing skills in Spanish. I also learned about new forms of writing and different topics that other countries write about. The work I researched by Eugenia Almeida was titled “El Colectivo”, which is one of the main forms of transportation used in Argentina. The story talked about the culture and life of using the bus everyday, so I was able to learn about this cultural aspect as well and apply it to my presentation. I can definitely use the skills I learned in the presentation in my future career because this assignment allowed me to present and create a PowerPoint all in Spanish and then explain my work to an audience. I will have to use public speaking skills in my future career, and it was even more challenging to do this in Spanish, but I’m glad I was able to. It is important to learn about other cultures, and if you do not get to experience this learning first hand, it is always great to read about other cultures through personal stories and books.
LINGUISTIC ARTIFACT:
For my first artifact, I decided to submit my “Retrato” which translates to “portrait” in English. I did this assignment while I was in Argentina for my literature class. We were supposed to choose someone in our lives and write a paper that portrays them in a very truthful way. Our portrait of them couldn’t have too many positive or negative opinions of this person, but rather show the raw image of them. One of the biggest things I learned through this assignment was a lot of new vocabulary in Spanish and also how to write such a deep and meaningful story in Spanish. Most of my papers so far in my target language were academic papers, so this was one of the first stories I wrote about something that meant a lot to me. It helped further my understanding and appreciation of Spanish, and I was very proud of myself for being able to write this type of paper in a different language.
For my second artifact, I decided to submit my assignment about the Gauchos in Argentina. This was one of my first history papers I had to write while abroad. Gauchos are very important in Argentina and it is important to learn about them to understand the history and culture of this country. Gauchos are very similar to modern day cowboys, and I explained this more in my paper and also their impact. This was a difficult task for me since it was one of the first and longest academic papers I had to write in Spanish. I overcame these obstacles by learning a lot of new vocabulary and using the help of peers to edit the final paper. Overall, I did a great job on this paper and my teacher was impressed with my work especially since it was one of our first papers during our time abroad. I learned many skills during this assignment, and also so much about Argentine culture.
PUBLIC HEALTH ARTIFACT:
For my first artifact, I decided to submit my literature review that I did in my ‘Determinants of Health Behaviors'' class at Clemson my sophomore year. I chose this assignment because I believe it shows my ability to write about a topic in a strong, academic way. It also shows my ability to find and research important topics in health such as HIV and STDs. I want to do medical research in my future career so I think this paper shows my ability to do this. I learned a lot through this work, and I am excited to share this paper with everyone because I am proud of my work
For my second health artifact, I am submitting my Global Health paper that I completed my junior year before going to study abroad. For this assignment, we were asked to choose a country and write about their plans to reach their future Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I chose India because my mom is from this country, so I really wanted the opportunity to learn more about the healthcare here, and how India is taking steps towards a better future for themselves. I am very proud of my work on this paper, and I really loved getting to connect and learn about India in a new light.