Student Profiles

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Amber Buck '08
M.A. Leadership Studies – Interdisciplinary specialization

Amber has participated in three Global Study programs through USD. She has traveled to Bangkok, Thailand; Mondragon, Spain and Shanghai, China. Amber interprets her experiences as “cultural immersions.” Amber says that she “thoroughly enjoyed learning from the people [she] traveled with.” Anytime she visited a new country she learned as an individual, but gained more from her experiences with the group of people with whom she traveled.

Amber’s worldview has completely changed because of her international experiences. She says that she is now much more open to considering how a person’s culture influences the way they experience the world and how this shapes their actions.

In the future, Amber hopes to travel more within the U.S. She would also like to revisit some of the countries to which she has already been to further explore them. She encourages students to take advantage of the SOLES Global Study program because it is both enriching and reasonably priced!

Devadhasan Masilamony
Ph.D., Leadership Studies

Devadhasan (Deva) is from Tamil Nadu, a Southern state in India. His seven siblings still live there farming as their family profession. Deva joined the seminary at age 16 and moved to North India to work as a missionary. There he experienced a more underdeveloped part of his nation. After being ordained as a priest in 1994, Deva worked as a pastor in Delhi for six years before coming to the United States.

In the United States, he continued work with Catholic Charities, a nonprofit organization that works with people of different castes, faiths and ethnicities. One of his projects in the program was initiating a micro-credit program for the poor and illiterate men and women living in slums and rural areas of Delhi. He left the program with 90 micro-credit groups and today it has over 1,000.

Deva came to USD in the fall of 2004 and believes it was a great decision. He says that he has felt welcomed here from the very first moment and he his glad to be in, “this wonderful country of freedom, opportunity, and equality.”

The most unexpected thing Deva has faced is driving on the California freeways! He has also been challenged by learning to cook, because in India it is uncommon for men to cook.

Deva's area of specialization is leadership and nonprofit management and he really liked the uniqueness of the leadership program here. Deva thinks that it provides students with opportunities to explore leadership from a cross-cultural perspective and allows them to examine this with fellow students and professors.

“I am very grateful and indebted to USD for providing me with a scholarship and giving me an opportunity to study in this prestigious University with an extraordinary environment.”

Interviews and Write-ups by Katie Johnston