Graduation at UW-Madison: Beloved Badger Community
O f South Indian heritage, Christeena Jojo was born and raised in Chicago.
By Jonathan Gramling
As Christeena Jojo walked to the stage on May 5th in the Memorial Union’s Great Hall to give a graduate perspective at the UW-Madison CeO Graduation Celebration, she was met with a lot of applause with people voicing their affection. Jojo had been a fixture at the Center for Educational Opportunity offices and thus became a part of their weekly routines.
It has always been about family for Jojo. Of South Indian heritage, Jojo was born and raised in Chicago as her immigrant parents did everything they could to ensure opportunity for their children.
Jojo went to Lane Tech High School and it was there that Jojo became involved with the Chicago Scholars, a program designed to give promising students, many of them first-generation, the tools and opportunities they needed to succeed academically.
“They helped me write my essays and how to get recommendations from teachers,” Jojo said. “It was a great program. They also helped me get an internship. I actually worked with UNICEF through the program. They connected me after my first year. I was able to work in the UNICEF office and meet a lot of great mentors. Chicago Scholars definitely helped. Chicago Scholars also does tours to colleges. A lot of the time, my parents were working, so I was never able to tour the schools. UW-Madison is the only one that I got to go to because College Scholars provided a tour to go to Madison. We visited UW-Madison. I loved the campus. I liked it a lot. And so the only issue was whether or not I was going to get in or not. I got in.”
Jojo qualified for a Banner Scholarship for out-of-state first-generation students that helped her get through college debt-free. It was also strongly suggested that she join CeO, which became her family away from home and gave her a sense of belonging at a large, predominantly white university.
“They said something about free printing and stuff,” Jojo said with a smile. “And I was like, ‘I know I need something to print my homework and notes up with. I have to join this program.’ It ended up being such a great community, similar to Chicago Scholars. They were there for the four years of my college experience. They were always there being able to help you get prepared. And truly, if I wasn’t a part of CeO, I don’t know if I would have done as well as I did my freshman year starting off really strong because I had advisors telling me to go to office hours. And they told me, ‘Even if you don’t need tutoring, just sign up for tutoring. It’s going to help you be prepared.’ It was a really great opportunity to do that. Having those weekly mandatory meetings were great.”
As time allowed, Jojo spent more and more time at the CeO office, so much so that she got the chance to become a student helper and mentor.
“I started working there more and got closer connections with the advisors,” Jojo said. “And they treated me like family. Some days I was working there and someone couldn’t come and I would be there for a while and they would bring me food. ‘How’s your day. Do you need a break?’ It made school more like a family. Since I was coming from Chicago away from home, it’s hard to go back home every once in a while. Having another ‘family’ on campus made it feel a lot more doable. And I know a lot of people say that college is doable for anyone. But having that support system helped me succeed along the way. Having that support system from CeO made such a big difference. It made me enjoy my experience a lot more. It really brought a lot of connections to me. I had a lot more fulfilling experiences and I have no regrets because I was always able to ask questions and feel comfortable in that environment.”
Jojo is very active intellectually which has driven her to explore many interests while at UW-Madison. She had too many interests and couldn’t decide what to major in. And then one day, her CeO advisor told her about a new major on campus, Health Promotion & Health Equity.
“He said, ‘I’m hearing about this new major and it sounds like it has a lot of your interests and what you want to do,’” Jojo related. “It was an awesome opportunity. Health Promotion & Health Equity really talks about the community, individuals, cultures and the backgrounds of different individuals. It also delves into social economic factors and the social determinants of health. The social determinants of health is something very important that can be applied in every single field like economics. I took a health policy class that was focused on the economy and how that plays such a significant factor of how they make policies. It is a major factor in health and on decisions that hospitals have to make. I think it is something very important and I wanted to pursue more health equity studies, directing those health equities in the community. I think it really touched base a lot seeing it in my own family and household and hearing it from others growing up and learning from my friends and their households. It was a great opportunity to continue to pursue education in that area.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Jojo returned to Chicago and attended UW-Madison virtually in a place where the WiFi wasn’t great and she became her parents’ child once again.
“Schooling wise, there was a lot to manage doing that, working maybe 30 hours a week for 18 credits,” Jojo said. “During COVID-19, I was the captain of my Bhangra team. And teaching dance online is probably something I had never done before. I had to learn how to navigate that path as well, leading almost 30 dancers through Zoom calls and teaching them how to dance. That was interesting because the Internet was different for every student and we had to keep that in mind. Or the music would pause or the screen would freeze. It was an interesting dynamic. Overall, I learned a lot about resilient, having good communication and being there as a support family.”
Jojo plans on becoming a medical doctor with an interest in public health. Whether the work takes her to Chicago, India or places in between, Jojo has the confidence that she make an impact on health equity. And part of that confidence comes from feeling a part of a larger Badger family.
“I think one of the speakers said that they were in a different country and they met someone from Madison,” Jojo said. “And that is so true. That whole feeling came as well when I was on Spring Break and I ended up in Hawaii. I don’t know how, but in the middle of the road, I saw some student from UW-Madison. And when I was in Peru for Study Abroad, I met this older gentleman who was climbing Machu Picchu. And he saw a t-shirt that said ‘UW-Madison’ and he said, ‘I used to go there.’ It was crazy how I saw another Badger alum in Peru. Or you can be in the airport and meet a hockey student and they said, ‘Oh, I went there.’ Even though we are leaving campus, we’re always going to be surrounded by people who were associated with UW-Madison.”
And Jojo can identify with what other Badger alumni have gone through and she knows that she is prepared to handle whatever life presents.
“It was an amazing experience hearing the Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield who is a UW alum,” Jojo said about the keynote speech at the UW-Graduation Ceremony at Camp Randall. “She was very insightful. A main theme she talked about in her speech was she left her family and came here. It was a culture shock for her. And she mentioned that she was able to learn to adapt and be able to continuously learn from people. That was something similar to me coming from Chicago as well coming to Madison. Chicago was more diverse than it is here. I felt the same connections, being able to learn from others and navigate the whole situation. She also mentioned that she is first-generation in her family as well. She was able to find her passion through experiencing different classes on campus. She told the story of how she was huffing and puffing to get up to the top of Bascom Hill. Now it’s just a breeze. It was a difficult journey at first. But now it is a lot easier with the connections and the people whom I met through college.”
Family is always important to Christeena Jojo, whether it is immediate family or the global Badger village. And feeling a part of something bigger than herself gives Jojo the confidence she needs to change the world, one health policy at a time.
