Regan Elmore (’25) knew from a young age that she was deeply fascinated by Asian culture, including a love of anime and K-pop. Parents and peers told her she would grow out of it, but as Elmore asserts, “I never have, and I never will.”
Elmore began her journey as a Duke studying International Affairs. But since its requirements took her outside her area of interest, she wasn’t completely sold.
But at a Majors and Minors Fair after her first semester, she was hooked by the booth that promised to let her design her own major.
Even before taking her first Independent Scholars course, she was sure it was the right choice. “I knew as soon as I could make my own major. I was like, ‘This is it.’ I could individualize my studies in a way that made sense for me.”
Elmore decided to call her major East Asian Studies. She found that even though that specific option wasn’t available at JMU, the name was recognizable and self-explanatory enough for future employers. Her studies focused on combining Korean, Japanese and Chinese culture, and she explored how they have influenced each other as well as where they differ. In her research class, IND 200, she started with the question “What is East Asia?”
“There is so much research and so many people in the field that can’t decide what East Asia is,” she shared. “It is a weird phenomenon of figuring out what the boundaries are.”
Elmore dove headfirst into research, asking questions to help define East Asia’s geographical and historical bounds, and its cultural and language bounds. She took history courses that focused on each country in the region, and numerous Korean language courses.
The rich interconnectedness of turmoil and cooperation among the three countries offered a treasure trove of information for Elmore to unearth in her studies.
Experiential learning is one of the pillars of the Independent Scholars program, and students are finding immersive ways to satisfy that requirement while furthering their own passions. For Elmore, that meant a summer study-abroad trip to Japan on a scholarship provided through the Honors College and the Independent Scholars program. “I’m going to a country that I’ve been studying, and I get to meet these people. I get to hopefully speak the language. I get to eat their food. I get to see the landscape. I get to enjoy the culture. It was kind of like my dream come true,” she said.
Her senior capstone project narrowed her initial question as she decided to more deeply engage with a topic at the forefront of her studies during her summer in Japan — the interaction and distinction between the study of divination and fortune-telling in the country.
Sharing a brief summary of her findings, she highlighted the differences in the practices. “Fortune-telling is based on you as a person and maybe one other person, offering a glimpse into the future, while divination is something that is more used in historical Japan, things that are dependent on a god and their interference in the whole of the country, things like political affairs or the weather.”
In a way, the Independent Scholars experience made college easier for Elmore. Because she had control over her classes, she never had to worry about taking a course for her major that she was not passionate about. “I feel like the program let me choose so much of what I was interested in, that college just felt like something that I always wanted to do.”
Elmore appreciates how the program pushed her outside of her comfort zone, whether she was honing skills in the classroom or attending undergraduate conferences. “They really try to prepare you for the real world outside of college, getting you to practice public speaking and writing skills while also helping you get to know yourself more. I feel like I learned a lot about myself in this major and figuring out what works best for me, what I am interested in and what I want to discover.”
This fall, Elmore finds herself in the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement as a Presidential Engagement Fellow. In this role, she is running the marketing team, where she hopes to use her studies to build a connection with the Center for Global Engagement and international students, building stronger bonds with international universities.
