Posted 10:04 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014
UW-L December graduate Yolona Ngandali will apply what she’s learned in anthropology to help fellow graduates embrace their future.
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Yolona Ngandali, 2014 Winter Commencement speaker, poses in front of a display she updated for the Archaeology Department in Murphy Library.[/caption]
UW-L December graduate Yolona Ngandali has spent the last two years studying anthropology — the study of humans past and present. On commencement day, she’ll apply what she’s learned to help fellow graduates embrace their future.
Ngandali, an archaeological studies major, will give the student address at UW-L’s Winter Commencement ceremony 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 14, at the La Crosse Center.
Ngandali has learned from anthropology not to compare people from the various cultures she studies in terms of “better or worse” or “weird or normal.” Instead, people are simply all living their lives in different ways.
“That’s something we can apply to our lives as we move forward,” says Ngandali. “If you keep worrying about where you are in comparison with your peers, you’re not focusing on your work, but other things. As we go out into the world, we need to worry about the task at hand and follow our own path.”
Ngandali has followed her own path so far in life. It led her to the archaeological studies program at UW-L in 2012. She was a transfer student from Minneapolis Community and Technical College where she earned her degree in audio video digital media in 2009. After graduating from technical school, she started working as a freelance videographer making videos for weddings. But she didn’t like the work and longed for something more challenging.
Ngandali was taking time off work and school and taking scuba diving lessons when she first discovered her interest in archaeology.
“I saw this sailboat under the water and I could not get it out of my head,” she says. “It was thrilling to see an object and try to understand it. I was so excited about the history behind it. That’s what we do in archaeology.”
Ngandali found the archaeological studies program at UW-L because it is the only comprehensive undergraduate degree program in archaeology in the Midwest. With an archaeology lab on campus, sites in the area to do excavations and opportunities to do research with artifacts as an undergraduate, Ngandali feels her UW-L experience is one she couldn’t have had at any another institution.
In anthropology, Ngandali also studied moments like graduation — a rite of passage. She encourages her fellow graduates to realize the importance of this particular rite of passage. The end of college is a transformative time. It’s a time for her fellow graduates to reflect on the challenges and accomplishments they’ve had as they throw their hats into the air and move forward in their own important way.
Yolona Ngandali, 2014 Winter Commencement speaker, poses in front of a display she updated for the Archaeology Department in Murphy Library.[/caption]
UW-L December graduate Yolona Ngandali has spent the last two years studying anthropology — the study of humans past and present. On commencement day, she’ll apply what she’s learned to help fellow graduates embrace their future.
Ngandali, an archaeological studies major, will give the student address at UW-L’s Winter Commencement ceremony 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 14, at the La Crosse Center.
Ngandali has learned from anthropology not to compare people from the various cultures she studies in terms of “better or worse” or “weird or normal.” Instead, people are simply all living their lives in different ways.
“That’s something we can apply to our lives as we move forward,” says Ngandali. “If you keep worrying about where you are in comparison with your peers, you’re not focusing on your work, but other things. As we go out into the world, we need to worry about the task at hand and follow our own path.”
Ngandali has followed her own path so far in life. It led her to the archaeological studies program at UW-L in 2012. She was a transfer student from Minneapolis Community and Technical College where she earned her degree in audio video digital media in 2009. After graduating from technical school, she started working as a freelance videographer making videos for weddings. But she didn’t like the work and longed for something more challenging.
Ngandali was taking time off work and school and taking scuba diving lessons when she first discovered her interest in archaeology.
“I saw this sailboat under the water and I could not get it out of my head,” she says. “It was thrilling to see an object and try to understand it. I was so excited about the history behind it. That’s what we do in archaeology.”
Ngandali found the archaeological studies program at UW-L because it is the only comprehensive undergraduate degree program in archaeology in the Midwest. With an archaeology lab on campus, sites in the area to do excavations and opportunities to do research with artifacts as an undergraduate, Ngandali feels her UW-L experience is one she couldn’t have had at any another institution.
In anthropology, Ngandali also studied moments like graduation — a rite of passage. She encourages her fellow graduates to realize the importance of this particular rite of passage. The end of college is a transformative time. It’s a time for her fellow graduates to reflect on the challenges and accomplishments they’ve had as they throw their hats into the air and move forward in their own important way.