Introducing: Rikki Valkema

Who am I? Hello, my name is Richelle Valkema but I much rather prefer to be referred to as Rikki.  I am twenty two years old and super excited for my upcoming graduation in December.  I just finished up my fourth year at MSU as an undergraduate anthropology student focused in the socio-cultural subdivision specializing in Asian Studies.  My main area of interest is South Korea, especially the modern media culture and its relation to a possible increase in the South Korean crime rate.

Hobbies: reading, writing, singing, sketching, KOREAN!  I am currently studying Korean as well as Mandarin Chinese and I know a little Spanish as well as my native language, English.  Learning languages is actually a hobby of one of my younger sisters and mine.  Studying other cultures and practicing other languages have always been things that I enjoy so when I learned what anthropology was and that I could major in it, I quickly chose to major in it right away!

Where am I from?  I am a native Michigander born and raised in Kalamazoo.  I come from a relatively large family but I am the first child to go to college.

Why the CHI Fieldschool?  I chose to apply for this program/fieldschool because it specializes in the digital aspect of cultural heritage and I am sadly not very capable with technology.  I do not have my own webpage and my younger sister has always set up my accounts such as twitter and youtube.  I really wanted to understand technology better, and I really wanted to find out how this relates to cultural heritage.  Technology is becoming too important in the field of anthropology and I figured that I really couldn’t keep waiting to learn about it if I wanted to be capable and competitive in my career/search for a career.

Technology and the understanding of how it works is especially important considering how many of the sources for my area of interest are in a digital format and involve using technology that I am not currently familiar with.

 

So far from what I have seen this last week, I can’t wait to really dig into our project designing and creation.  There are so many people here that know where their interests and passions lay and I love how refreshing it is to be surrounded by passionate intellectuals!

 

It’s nice to meet you all!

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