Major: Global Commerce
Imani Holmes ’19 started her freshman year at Denison piecing together courses to create a degree that combined her Spanish minor with her love of business. By the end of the year, Denison announced its new Global Commerce degree, perfect for Holmes who already seems to have a head start at taking on the world. Last summer, she started with Spain.
You traveled to Spain to research cultural identities of African immigrants on the Iberian Peninsula. How did the intersection of those ideas come together?
I wanted to understand how migration patterns affect people’s experiences in a new country. Even though Africans had been in Spain for a very long time, they still didn’t feel like part of the social fabric. These are strong people who have, despite the odds, decided to recreate their own story. Africans never felt like they had been disadvantaged or targeted. They used their setbacks to dig deeper into their own cultural roots.
How has that research informed your Global Commerce studies?
I was able to listen to interviewees and hear their stories. In global commerce, you’re thinking about price point, profit margins, leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, and mergers. Every one of those things requires an innate skill: to listen, to think critically, and to tell the right story. The liberal arts just enhance those abilities, allowing you to thrive in every area but still find your specialty along the way. All of that means I can sit down at a table of people who are not like me and talk eloquently about a variety of topics in business.