How a couple of classes and one trip turned an undecided K-State student into a public defense attorney
Jill Applegate ’16 can draw a direct line from her involvement with K-State’s International Service Teams program to being a public defense lawyer in New York City.
Growing up in a house divided — her dad went to KU and her mom went to K-State — becoming a Wildcat wasn’t a guarantee.
“I visited K-State, and I just loved the campus,” Applegate said. “I knew my mom had a wonderful experience here, so I decided to come here.”
Finding her purpose
Initially, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study and “bopped around different majors for the first year-and-a-half.” Then she took a Latin American Studies class in the Spanish department.
“We talked about ancient indigenous societies from colonization through the present day,” she said. “We learned about the challenges of their fights for independence and the Cold War’s influence on Latin America. I became really interested in issues of migration from that class.”
At the same time, she was taking a class in the Staley School of Leadership to prepare for an education abroad opportunity with the International Service Teams program.
“I learned about the issues that arise when people from relatively wealthy, privileged countries engage in service abroad,” she said. “It taught us how to go into that experience with a lot of curiosity and to decenter ourselves.”
The summer after her sophomore year, she traveled to the Dominican Republic to work with an education non-profit called the DREAM Project. It was that experience that changed her life.
“Before that trip, my interest in migration was more academic or theoretical,” she said. “Once I started to meet people internationally, I realized I wanted to provide a service that could materially make their lives better.”
From the Little Apple to the big one
She returned to the K-State campus to receive the K-State Alumni Association’s 2024 Distinguished Young Alumni Award. In addition to her service work abroad, she reflected on her time as a research assistant in the sociology department, where she had “the privilege of learning about migration for immigrant farm workers themselves.”
The project had her interacting with migrants in a small farming community an hour outside of K-State.
“It was interesting to see what happens when a town’s demographics change rapidly and its impact on community needs,” she said.
After graduation, she returned to the Dominican Republic and worked for two years with the DREAM Project.
She eventually went to law school and is now a Skadden Fellow at the Neighborhood Defender Service in Harlem, New York. She provides holistic legal and social services to people experiencing the same issues she saw among farm workers in Kansas.
“I can confidently say that I would not be doing the work I’m doing right now,” she said, “if it hadn’t been for these experiences.”
What I’ve learned
Travel tip: Embrace the freedom. “I realized I was very privileged to have the freedom to travel to the Dominican Republic. I was making Dominican friends who couldn’t just get on a plane and come to the U.S. I became really interested in learning more about migration and borders and why someone born on one side has rights and privileges that aren’t available to a person born on the other side.”
Impact of philanthropy: Scholarships helped cover her travel costs. “Studying abroad is so expensive. It devastates me to think that there are students who don’t get to experience it solely because they can’t afford it.”
