{"id":20161,"date":"2023-05-11T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T16:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=20161"},"modified":"2026-01-18T23:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:00:27","slug":"macalester-student-receives-phi-beta-kappa-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2023\/05\/macalester-student-receives-phi-beta-kappa-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Macalester student receives Phi Beta Kappa scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macalester junior <\/span>Holiday O\u2019Bryan \u201824<\/b> received Phi Beta Kappa\u2019s (PBK) undergraduate Key into Public Service<\/a> scholarship. The award includes a $5,000 scholarship and the opportunity to attend a conference in Washington, D.C. from June 21-25 where recipients receive training and mentoring about jobs in public service. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an undergrad, you have so many opportunities to learn from people, so I\u2019m looking forward to hearing from those who are in public service careers and about how they got there,\u201d said O\u2019Bryan, who was one of 20 students selected from more than 900 applicants. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program is designed to connect promising liberal arts and sciences students, a profile O\u2019Bryan fits very well. As a double major in geology and political science, with a minor in dance and a concentration in legal studies, O\u2019Bryan has always found it tricky to focus her career in just one direction. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a STEM background in more hard sciences, but also within more soft sciences like political science. I\u2019ve got both, and I\u2019m trying to figure out how I can use both. I can study rocks that don\u2019t communicate with anybody or cause any problems, or I can study people. Nonetheless, the skills I\u2019ve gotten from my geology classes do show up in my political science classes,\u201d O\u2019Bryan said. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her mid-summer trip to the nation\u2019s capital, O\u2019Bryan is looking forward to hearing from professionals within her field of interest so that she can explore the inner workings of public service careers and what they entail.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m really hoping that this experience will be another one of those things that solidifies what I want to be doing. For me, I have two tracks that I\u2019m thinking about right now, and I\u2019m trying to find a way that I can merge those two tracks,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m searching for people to guide me on how to make decisions for my future career.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With three years of experience participating in Model UN \u2014 an educational simulation where students learn about diplomacy and international relations \u2014 O\u2019Bryan says she\u2019s confident she has the speaking and networking skills to make the most out of the program. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have public speaking skills, and I just generally have a skill to talk to people in a professional setting. I feel comfortable being myself and representing myself, and I\u2019m so excited to hear about the actual content we\u2019re going to learn about futures in public service,\u201d O\u2019Bryan said. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her two main tracks of geology and political science, O\u2019Bryan has great aspirations. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a geologist, I can say that I want to create a more sustainable future by improving our technology and our use of resources. As a public servant, I would love to see the world more physically accessible,\u201d O\u2019Bryan said. \u201cI use a cane, and the world is not very nice to me, so I think it would be very important to have legislation that recognizes and works to uplift the lives of disabled people. I would also love to see some consensus in the UN for humanitarian law and enforcement of that, especially concerning refugees and women being displaced by domestic violence and gender-based violence in other countries.\u201d <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Macalester junior Holiday O\u2019Bryan \u201824 received Phi Beta Kappa\u2019s (PBK) undergraduate Key into Public Service scholarship.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":20163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20161"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30157,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions\/30157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}