Jacob Feinstein
Religious Studies Minor Class of 2024
What was your major/minor? Why did you choose it?
Major: History, Minors: Religious Studies, Professional Writing ||| I chose these fields because they helped me understand how the world worked and what factors influenced the unfolding of history.
What was your first job after graduation?
I was a legislative intern for my local representative's office to the California State Assembly.
What are you up to now?
I currently attend Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service pursuing my MA in Security Studies. I work in national security, where understanding multiple perspectives and backgrounds is necessary to produce meaningful, lasting, and productive results.
How did your experience at UC Davis prepare you for the next step in your academic and professional journey?
Religious Studies was a critical part of my undergraduate years and I regret that I had not found it when I was a freshman instead of a late Junior. Each class was taught by dedicated and highly knowledgeable professors who really wanted to show you the incredible depth of religious studies.
What's your advice for someone considering your major/minor?
Take Religious Studies. RST is uniquely valuable because it is writing and research intensive like many other disciplines, but it also requires objective and subjective analytical reasoning. Sometimes your answers can be interpretive, other times they must be an exact understanding of the religious source material, which trains you to understand issues from both factual and personal standpoints.
What was your favorite part of your undergraduate program here?
Funny professors!
Do you have a professor or a class you want to shout out?
Professor Wendy Terry!
Approach adversity with the positive mindset that you are being given an opportunity to prove yourself--not that the challenge is some obstacle that must be labored over before achieving something greater.