By Sydney Dyer, Staff Writer
Sam Martin ’24 (Photo Provided)
“It was not planned, no,” Samantha Martin ’24 laughed when asked if triple majoring was her plan coming into Gettysburg her freshman year.
Martin is a triple major in political science, public policy and women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGS) with a minor in peace and justice studies. She is currently studying abroad in Washington, D.C. in the Lutheran College Washington Semester, interning with both the Public Religion Research Institute and the National Women’s Political Caucus.
In addition to her rigorous academics, Martin is also a student ambassador for the WGS department, a member of the Public Policy Student Council and College Democrats, as well as founding a branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) at Gettysburg. Her involvement highlights her intense commitment and passion for the work she does at Gettysburg.
Since coming to college, Martin’s plan for her future has always been the same, despite her long path to triple majoring. She said she did not initially realize that public policy was a major offered at Gettysburg. After discovering it, she declared her majors as public policy and WGS and her minor as peace and justice studies in her first year, deciding that the two fields suited her future plans.
However, the following summer, she was part of the Kolbe Fellowship Program at Gettysburg and started her current research on women’s Christian fundamentalism and Christian nationalism. Deciding her research would align closer with a major in political science, she switched to a major of political science instead of public policy and kept her WGS major in the fall of her sophomore year. She also dropped her peace and justice studies minor.
At that point, Martin’s advisor in public policy, Professor Anne Douds, approached Martin with the possibility of majoring in all three disciplines. This was made possible by several factors. Martin fulfilled many of her general education requirements in high school through AP course credit, which freed up space in her schedule, and while all three majors added up to 30 required credits, each major allowed Martin to overlap two classes with each other to count for two majors.
With this new possibility, Martin redeclared once again, this time with all three majors in the fall of 2021. In the fall of 2022, she redeclared her minor in peace and justice studies, using her course credits in her three majors to satisfy the requirements.
For Martin, all three of these majors were essential.
“It was really crucial for me to have that WGS major, but I also plan on pursuing my master’s in public policy and my PhD in political science, so it made a lot of sense to me to major in both. All three of them were crucial and I really felt like I would not be prepared for my future work if I dropped any of the three of them, or even if I just pushed them down to a minor,” Martin said. She also explained that her minor in peace and justice studies allowed her to explore themes of justice, diplomacy, peace, identity, and how they affect people’s politics.
She stated that the most burdensome aspect of managing her schedule has been facing her fear of failure.
“I’ll admit, I was a straight A student in high school, and I am not a straight A student at Gettysburg… Accepting my fears of getting lower grades for the sake of trying to learn something, and for the sake of learning as much as I can is something that I’ve had to embrace, because I’ve decided that my desire to learn as much as possible and to experience new things is more important than my grades. I’m hoping that that’s an answer that my grad schools will accept,” said Martin.
She said the amount of help she received from her advisors to support her endeavors has been crucial to her ability to triple major.
Martin is currently in Washington D.C. studying abroad and completing two internships. She is interning for the Public Religion Research Institute, which is an experience that counts towards her public policy major. In this role, she has been researching Christian nationalism in the United States.
Martin also interns for the National Women’s Political Caucus, where she helps to research and support women running for political offices. The internship counts for her WGS major, as an exception made by the department, which Martin said she is incredibly grateful for. WGS majors typically complete a WGS 290 Practicum with an internship on campus, but the department permitted Martin to complete the requirement abroad with the stipulation that she complete the same readings and assignments that would normally be assigned during the class.
When Martin returns to Gettysburg next fall, she will be a senior. Her plans for the year include completing her three capstones, and she has expressed that she will accept an opportunity to complete an Honors Thesis, if offered to her. To get ahead with the work, she said she plans to work on her peace and justice studies project during the summer. She also said she is applying for the Fielding Fellowship with the Eisenhower Institute and hopes to return to all the clubs and activities she took part in before studying abroad, and making AAUW more active on campus.
“Gettysburg was voted the 20th most LGBTQ hostile college in America,” Martin noted, referring to the findings of the most recent Princeton Review. “As someone who is researching Christian nationalism, and the impact of gender on American politics, that is something that I would really like to work on, advocating on behalf of LGBTQ people here at Gettysburg and creating an environment that takes issues of gender identity and sexuality more seriously. I’m hoping to come back to a more welcoming campus, but if not I’ll make it a more welcoming campus.”
As her time at Gettysburg comes to a close, Martin said she will apply to graduate schools. As for her future, she said she is open to several different graduate programs but has her eye on Rutgers for her PhD in political science, with a focus on women’s studies. Martin wants to continue living in DC and eventually work as a policy advisor or to address Christian nationalism in politics. Eventually, Martin hopes to teach at a university level, maybe even at Gettysburg College.
“I do know that I eventually want to teach at some point, and I do plan on going to the university level to teach, but whether or not I go straight into that or I work with some sort of research organization or think tank, anything along those lines, is totally up to the cards. I’m just gonna see what opportunities come my way,” she said.
