作者:Jonah Grinkewitz 

Sara Rose Hotaling admits her educational journey has been “circuitous.”

As a student in the Legal Studies Academy at First Colonial High School, 她最初想从事法律工作，并在前美国律师事务所实习.S. Rep. Elain Luria的国会竞选. 

Hotaling said she is passionate about many things and thought the opportunity would be a good way to channel her passion into creating change. After seeing the inner mechanisms of politics though, she decided there were better ways to do this. 

当她遇到一些健康问题时, she switched to medicine and enrolled in pre-med classes at Tidewater Community College, 因为她认为, “‘Well, 我自己想办法.’” 

She transferred into 最靠谱的网赌软件 in 2022 as a junior and started out on an interdisciplinary track to craft a degree in naturopathic medicine. Her focus was on preventative care and creating a pathway for clinical trials of non-pharmaceutical remedies.

Hotaling不想在医院工作, 但她越深入这个领域, 她意识到这样做对实现自己的目标至关重要.

“You have to be willing to operate within a system that you don’t believe in to then effect change in that system, and health care and politics were two systems that I was not willing to do that in because I didn’t see a route that was feasible,”她说。. 

所以，Hotaling再次改变了事情. 她一直喜欢读书和写作, so she changed her major to English and hoped to find her calling along the way. 

That direction came from a linguistics class taught by ODU master lecturer Beth Backes.  

“I thought, ‘This is everything I want,’ and it’s been full speed ahead since then,’霍塔林说. 

她的下一站是接受她的B.A. in English with a concentration in applied linguistics and a certification in Teaching English as a Second Language on May 4.

“ODU has allowed me to find very influential and impactful people in my life,萨拉·罗斯·霍塔林说, 主修应用语言学的英语专业学生.

Hotaling liked that linguistics combined her interests in data and research with sociology and anthropology. She was particularly inspired by a study Backes did with data on how the media captions photos of Black people versus others.

“语言触及一切，”霍塔林说. “任何我或任何人感兴趣的话题, there is a way to do research and produce valuable information that can be utilized to effect change by policy makers, 教育者和有权力的人, 因为每个人都必须使用语言.”

During her studies, Hotaling learned about the rapid disappearance of Indigenous languages. 她想引起人们对这场危机的注意, so she organized the first-ever Indigenous Language Preservation Symposium at ODU this past March. 

“我想知道更多. 我认为每个人都应该了解更多. Obviously, the very simple solution was to plan an entire symposium on the subject,她笑着说. 

More than 70 people – including many from local tribes – attended the event which was sponsored by the Linguistics Department and ODU’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, 霍塔林曾担任主席的英国荣誉协会. 

“Sara Rose is intellectually curious, creative and hard working,” Backes said. 也许最令人印象深刻的是她看到问题的能力, propose a solution and then not only take action but inspire others to act as well – the mark of a real leader.”

艾米·林德斯特伦, 语言学助理教授, said it was an impressive accomplishment for an undergraduate student to organize such an event.

“萨拉·罗斯就是DYNAMO，”林德斯特伦在一封电子邮件中说. “I’ve told her repeatedly that she’s CRUSHING it both as a student and as a researcher.”

在她的最后一个学期, Hotaling won the ODU English 本科 Applied Language Studies Competition award for a paper she wrote on syntax analyzing how the passive voice has been used strategically to remove blame from one side and place blame on the other in news stories covering the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

“She (Lindstrom) was very willing to stay after class with me and personally answer all of my very linguistic-y questions, 现在我已经准备好了，可以完成非常困难的任务, high-level work that I probably wouldn’t have gotten in an undergrad experience if not for her,霍塔林说.

Another formative experience at ODU for Hotaling was interning at the 英语语言中心 作为英语讲师Ann Kumm的助教. ELC提供了一个高质量的, 价格合理, intensive English language program for speakers of other languages. 

“就像英语老师是老师一样, 他们也是学生, 因为你可以旅行并学到很多东西, 而是在ELC, 每天我都在学习与文化相关的东西,”她说。. 

"Sara Rose took every possible opportunity that she could to work with students in our program — something that she would tell you she equally benefited from,库姆说。. "Just "doing the act of tutoring" was never enough — she wanted to learn and ensure what she was doing mattered. 因为有了莎拉·罗斯，这个世界肯定会变得更好."

After graduation, Hotaling plans to move to England and apply to graduate schools there. She said her end goal is to be a professor of linguistics but “would not be surprised” if she ends up detouring for a bit. 

回顾她在ODU的时光, 她说她最感激的人是朋友, 作为导师的学生和教师. 

“ODU has allowed me to find very influential and impactful people in my life and I cannot stress enough how much the students at the ELC have especially impacted me,”她说。. 

“We have a lot to learn from the people we work with and not just the people that we’re told to look up to. 我们应该看过去. 当别人以居高临下的口气对你说话时，你不会记得任何积极的事情, 但当你与人交谈时，你会记得.”