Julia Sizek ’13

This girl loves to bake her own bread, runs at All-American speeds, and brings art and social justice into the same sphere. Julia Sizek is a one of a kind fourth year graduating this spring as an Anthropology and International Studies Major. During her time at the University of Chicago, Julia has made the most balancing the life of a student, an athlete, and involved community member.

As an athlete, Julia competed in Cross Country and Indoor/Outdoor track all four years. Balancing the rigorous course work of a UChicago student and a high achieving athlete was certainly not easy, but Julia didn’t miss a beat. Julia gives a lot of credit to the balance in her life from running. Besides stress relief, running has helped her stay strong, “from the nights where I force myself to sleep eight hours to the days when I eat healthier before a tough VO2 workout, running has helped me stay healthy in a place where all-nighters and midnight BartMart splurges are all the rage.” 

Julia is also a member of the Women’s Athletic Association, WAA, which is the oldest women’s lettermen club. WAA works to interact with other athletes on campus, alums and the community through athletics. As special events chair, Julia planned the Hoops for Hyde Park event which had the most success this year.  After all of her athletic triumphs Julia plans to have fun with her athletic skills after college, “In the meantime, I think I’ll challenge myself to complete strange and relatively dumb feats of strength, like biking the circumference of the Salton Sea (about 100 miles).”

As if she wasn’t involved enough, Julia is also part of the Students for a Socially Responsible Investment Committee. The Kalven report has been a source for the University’s policy making over forty years and the SSRIC questions this. The goal of the RSO to bring forth a positive social change and form a board to review the University’s investment policies and decisions.

Julia’s other extracurricular activities largely involve bringing art and the community together. The South Side Free Music Program works to recover some of the areas that Chicago Public School System misses in terms of music education. Julia has been a teacher, lead teacher and president and highly recommends SSFMP, “If there’s one thing to join while you’re here, I’d suggest the SSFMP. You learn a lot about yourself, your environment and music. And to boot—the kids are pretty darn cute.”

The Woodlawn Collaborative is Julia’s link to learning about the real world, which can be a tricky maneuver. However, the experience she has gained is well worth it. Julia is helping to host an event called Art in Action which will be taking place in the Logan Art Center. The event will work to bring together diverse groups interested in art and social justice. The event will bring together the community and the University both in the planning and the participation of the event.

Next year Julia will be working in Southern California for a year with two Native American land trust organizations—the Native American Land Conservancy and the Kumeyaay-Digueño Land Conservancy. This is organized by the Aizik Wolf Bost-Baccalaureate Fellowship, which is run by the Human Rights Program. Julia has accomplished many things in her four years here: an All-American, a stellar student, and a strong community member. She has picked up many skills like how to make delicious, tasty, oatmeal on the fly for class, excellent time management skills so she never stays in the Reg past one, and even teaching skills. The people she has met here have left their mark and she will miss them dearly when she graduates.