A person standing in front of sand dunes.

Nicholas Navin is a Sociology and Anthropology major and Japanese minor from Seattle, Washington. In addition to participating in the Honors Program, Nicholas was involved in a variety of activities on campus related to musical performance: besides serving as President of the Taiko (Japanese drums) Club, Nicholas also played in Puget Sound's Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas traveled twice to Asia on short-term faculty-led study abroad programs: in Indonesia, Nicholas took part in a program sponsored by the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE), and later, Nicholas traveled to Japan with a small group of Puget Sound students to study perceptions and reflections of slang and formal Japanese in contemporary Japanese society. Nicholas further pursued his interest in linguistic issues in his GDS thesis project, titled Indonesia and English: Understanding Globalization Methods Through the Medium-of-Instruction in Education. In this project, Nicholas investigated the relationship between medium-of-instruction and development outcomes in Indonesia.