Senior political science and global studies double major Cassandra Rogers is an overachiever who manages to remain grounded and balanced while taking advantage of the many opportunities that Hofstra University offers. In addition to double majoring, she has also managed to minor in both mass media studies and European studies. Rogers’ passion for politics began at a young age, inspired by many nights watching the news after dinner with her family.
In conjunction with politics, she enjoys learning about the intersection between politics and media. She is currently expanding upon that as a student in Hofstra’s Mass Media, Politics and Policymaking class. Rogers seeks out opportunities that point her towards achieving her goals, both recreational and otherwise. Her interest in global studies lent itself to a study abroad program in the spring semester of her sophomore year.
“I fell in love with The Netherlands on a week-long bike trip across the country I did in 2019,” Rogers said.
Naturally, when the opportunity came up to spend an entire semester in the place Rogers had already fallen in love with, she jumped at the chance. Taking advantage of her home base in The Netherlands to explore Europe, Rogers roamed across the continent on trip after trip, including domestic travel to Tilburg, Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Leiden, exploring some of the places that give their names to the freshman dorms at Hofstra.
“I became more confident in myself and my own abilities,” Rogers said about her travels, adding that she had a “phenomenal” experience. Learning to live in a city where she did not speak the language provided real-life practical educational moments.
“I was a little bit worried about going because I didn’t speak Dutch, but by the end of my time there, I had learned a lot of greeting phrases, food phrases and transportation phrases,” Rogers said.
Growing up in bilingual schools, Rogers is fluent in both English and Spanish. Now, she can add a little Dutch to the mix.
“I found many ways of getting around, including buses, trains, bicycles and one very memorable instance of just walking along the side of a highway,” Rogers said.
She spent many of her weekends on trips to other European cities, including a five-day bus trip from Amsterdam to Prague, the Czech Republic; Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria.
“I made some of my closest friends from my whole study abroad experience on that bus,” Rogers said.
On the first 16-hour leg of the trip, she met a redheaded stranger who she keeps in contact with to this day.
“The seats on that bus had no leg room so we had to get comfortable with each other really fast,” Rogers said with a laugh. “It was a whirlwind of seeing new cities.”
With the same people she spent 16 hours with on the bus to Prague, she set out on yet another trip to Copenhagen, Denmark with a day trip to Malmö, Sweden – the site of 2024’s Eurovision competition – and Lund, Sweden. After visiting an extensive list of cities at any spare moment she had, she is partial to a few places.
“I would love to go back to Vienna, both to properly see the city and to dance in one of the balls they hold there every winter,” Rogers said.
When she was not able to travel in person, Rogers often took trips in the pages of books – the kind of books with characters concealing daggers under hoop skirts while waltzing through marble halls. Her interest in that subgenre ignited a desire to learn ballroom dance.
Now in her fourth year at Hofstra, Rogers spends much of her free time dancing, often winning ribbons at competitions. Adorning her eyes and hair with crystals makes her sparkle just a little bit more than her competitors and adds to her Latin dance routines.
“I had always wanted to learn how to waltz,” Rogers said. “I went to the first [Hofstra ballroom] practice and had a blast. I haven’t looked back.”
There are four different types of ballroom dance: standard, smooth, Latin and rhythm. Rogers’ favorite style is Latin, where she brings life into her beloved tassel pants by shimmying her hips in the Latin figure eight. Rogers is a lead, which is traditionally the masculine role, but she stepped up when the Hofstra ballroom team was lacking in leads. She has danced with students from colleges up and down the eastern seaboard, competing for first place under the watchful eye of professional judges who rank and score their performances. As they improve, students level up and compete against more advanced dancers. Rogers now dances at the silver and gold levels.
In addition to dancing, Rogers enjoys working on cross-stitch projects, an embroidery-like craft that creates an image using different threads and stitches. She also loves crafting pictures for herself and others, including a graduation gift for her ballroom partner and a Christmas gift for her father. For Rogers, cross-stitching is creative and relaxing, it gives her something to do with her hands while listening to class assignments, the news and while watching television.
While her hobbies are very artistic, Rogers gravitates towards practical studies. She can find any country on a map and will point out border disputes that most people are oblivious to. Her experiences, abroad and at Hofstra, have taught her to reach for the stars, both in her career aspirations and in her hobbies. This year, she hopes to dance at the open level – the highest level of ballroom dance – and work in politics.