Justina Torrance

Why did you choose to major in Religious Studies?

A class that began as an elective prompted me to shift focus and Coterm in Religious Studies.

Where are you today (job, city, etc)? How has your degree shaped your interests and future paths?

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. My dissertation is on William James and Herman Melville, the former of whom I first encountered as an undergraduate in a class with Lee Yearley. I hope to publish and teach as a professor at a university in the not-so-distant future.

Why should students today consider taking a course or majoring Religious Studies and what can they expect?

You can expect many strangers on planes to start opening up to you about their religious backgrounds! But more seriously, you can expect rigorous training in critical thinking and participation in a discipline that is by nature interdisciplinary, that lets you choose your preferred method(s) of approach. This was appealing to me as an undergraduate, because I was interested in psychology, linguistics, literature, music, history, philosophy, and even learning particular languages such as Hebrew and Greek. Religious Studies is one of the few areas where you can unabashedly study the things that shape your soul.