By Jonathan Morales

2023年5月5日

When illness caused Douglas Andreasen to fall behind in high school, he decided to home-school himself to catch up – and ended up graduating early.

As a 萨克拉门托 State student, he applied for and received a scholarship to travel to Indonesia as a citizen diplomat and critical language scholar – fulfilling his foreign language requirement over the summer rather than an entire semester.

Such resourcefulness and out-of-the-box thinking have been Andreasen’s hallmarks throughout his journey to a college degree, a trek that will end with him being honored as one of the top graduating students in the Class of 2023.

Andreasen, who will receive a bachelor’s degree in History before going on to graduate school and a career in diplomacy, is the recipient of the Dean’s Award for the College of Arts and Letters. Deans’ Awards are given annually at Commencement to seven outstanding graduating students, one for each of 囊状态’s academic colleges.

History Professor Chloe Burke, who nominated Andreasen for the award, wrote in her accompanying letter that she had served as his adviser for two years and was “continually impressed by Douglas’ academic excellence … and what I came to see as his joyful dedication to making the most of life in pursuit of making the greatest contribution possible.”

安德瑞森是六个兄弟姐妹中最小的一个，他在北萨克拉门托的尤巴县长大，他的妻子是琳达。 当他的父母在失业和毒瘾中挣扎时，他早年就遭遇了逆境。 有一段时间，这家人住在帐篷里。

他的父母最终戒掉了毒瘾，找到了工作，家里有了稳定的住房，安德瑞森通过在家自学获得了高中文凭。 但缺课意味着他在数学上很吃力，并认为他不可能获得大学学位。

“(I was) continually impressed by Douglas’ academic excellence … and what I came to see as his joyful dedication to making the most of life in pursuit of making the greatest contribution possible.” ——克洛伊·伯克，历史学教授

高中毕业后的头几年，他和他的乐队一起工作和巡演，直到一位朋友说服他进入美国河学院（American River College），在那里他发现了自己对历史的热情。

“I had always known that I really dug history and thought it was interesting, but I was sort of a history major in denial,” Andreasen said. “But I realized at some point that history was my favorite academic subject.”

安德瑞森于2021年转学到萨克州立大学，成为家里第一个上四年制大学的人。 除了在课堂上表现优异外，他还致力于帮助社区。 通过“促进教育价值的伙伴关系”项目，他在服务不足的K-12学校担任导师。 作为首届# california for all College Corps的成员，他在一个课后项目中担任导师。

“Education is probably my second-favorite thing,” he said. “It was really easy to set aside the history thing for a minute and work with kids and try to help improve educational outcomes – be an advocate for education in general.”

他原以为自己会从事教学工作，但在印尼度过的那个夏天改变了他的职业轨迹。 一位教授鼓励他向政府申请额外的奖学金，很快他就获得了一笔奖学金，这笔奖学金将为他在萨克州立大学（囊状态）读研究生提供资金，随后是一个有保障的五年外交官职位。

尽管他很快就会开始一项可能会带他环游世界的职业，但他希望自己最终能回到萨克州立大学当教授。

“I really like the idea of coming to a place that I’ve already been to and being able to give back to the people who have made my life better,” Andreasen said. “Also, I like 囊状态. It’s cool. I’d like to one day be a part of the faculty here and do the same thing I had such a good time being a part of.”