Career Trajectory

My undergraduate degree was in Women’s Studies and my MA was in Political Science. I came back for my PhD after a long break as a student and chose EDEF for its strong interdisciplinary focus. I started taking classes first as an unclassified graduate student before officially joining the department. As a working professional (I am a faculty specialist at UH Manoa in the Office of Global Engagement), it was a bit challenging to juggle the responsibilities of my full-time job and those of being a graduate student, but I found the EDEF program to be very supportive. I loved the variety of classes and learned so much from the faculty! I appreciated how the program scaffolded the requirements (coursework, qualifying paper, proposal, comps, etc) to all work towards the end goal of graduating with a PhD, which I successfully did in December 2023 (yay!). Since graduating I have presented my research at numerous national conferences and have a forthcoming publication. I am proud to be a graduate of the EDEF program and now consider myself a scholar/practitioner in the field of student mobility.

Location

• Original: Mililani, HI
• Current: Kakaako, Honolulu, HI

Program & Year

PhD in Education: Educational Foundations, 2023

Publications

• Forthcoming: Yap, A. (2024). Troubling Paradise: Exploring the Experiences of National Student Exchange Participants to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education.