Julie's Story

In years to come, someone may ask: What do McKee, Malaysia, Indonesia, the White House, and St. Petersburg have in common?

The answer: Julie Jent had been to all of them before even finishing college.

McKee, Kentucky, a town of about 800, sits at the edge of the central Appalachian region, a place where the poverty rate is above 50 percent. Julie was one of eight children born to parents who struggled to take care of them. When she was still a toddler, she and her sister were sent to live with her great uncle, off a road where shooing cows was a regular occurrence.

There, she voraciously read books from the library and learned magic tricks, mainly card tricks, from some of them. Her family and teachers recognized her talents and commitment early on and encouraged her. She joined the academic and cross country teams, and, in her junior year in high school, discovered an opportunity to live and study in Malaysia through the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program.

“Not many people in my town travel outside of the country. I was in the newspaper. My uncle cut it out. I was naïve to think that anybody would go abroad if they had the chance. People told me they wouldn’t go to Malaysia if you paid them.”

Through her experience in Malaysia, Julie decided she wanted to be a Foreign Service officer with the United States Foreign Service. To get there, she would need to study political science.

“I knew very few people who had gone to college,” said Julie. “No one in my family had. I had to figure out a lot of things by myself.” But, not entirely by herself, because well before her senior year she had gotten involved with Upward Bound, which provided Julie the opportunity to spend eight summer weeks at Berea.

Her experience there earned her a nomination to be one of ten high school students to serve as a representative to the Beating the Odds Summit in Washington, D.C., where she met with then Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and First Lady Michelle Obama.

“That was really empowering to me,” said Julie, “because it was ten of us students sitting around a table and getting the chance to tell them our stories, things that made an impact on us and made us continue overcoming challenges to be able to go to college.

Julie credited mentorships, involvement in Upward Bound, and having people invest her future. The following summer, she returned to DC with those same students to act as a mentor to a larger group, sitting on panels and answering questions about college. The summer after that, Julie signed up with the United States-Indonesia Society (USINDO) to spend the summer studying the Indonesian language and culture.

When she sat down to be interviewed for this profile, Julie in her junior year had just returned from a semester in Russia, studying Russian history and contemporary life at Peter the Great University in St. Petersburg, an opportunity made available to her through Berea’s study abroad program.

In Russia, Julie learned to challenge her own assumptions about the Russian people. She credits Berea for the preparation to see past surface differences. “In my classes, I have to answer hard questions. I got some of those same questions when I was abroad. You have to try to understand where they are coming from.”

Applying to spend the next two summers abroad through the US Foreign Service Internship program, Julie feels these skills will help her. “At the State Department, you may have represent policies you might not agree with. It’s a learned skill – you have to remember you’re representing something bigger than yourself.”

While on campus, Julie competes with the debate team, works with Partners for Education, and serves with 19 other college students on the National Council of Young Leaders, which focuses on issues facing low-income young people.

Her great uncle is still one of her biggest encouragers, though there are mixed feelings at home. “It feels good that I am going to graduate college,” said Julie, “and I embrace being a first-generation student. But it’s more difficult than people make it out to be. Your family is happy you’re going to graduate, but at the same time they feel like you are getting farther and farther away from them.”

And they’re not wrong, knowing of Julie’s ambition to live and work at a foreign embassy one day. Though it would not keep her closer, that plan could be delayed after graduation if she manages to nab the Fulbright or Watson Fellowship or the Rhodes Scholarship, all of which Julie has her eyes on.

Or maybe the family we’ll feel better traveling to Washington to visit. “Maybe I’ll be president one day,” Julie said. “I think I have the drive.”

If so, that will certainly put McKee on the map.