A graduate student has returned to the University of South Florida after a week-long visit to the United Nations.

Brianna O'Steen, 24, was one of 13 students selected by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom to participate as a UN delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women.

"It's overwhelming, yeah," she said. "There's so many people and there's so much going on."

O'Steen not only observed the way the UN works, but she also addressed problems that women face around the globe.

"It was just really empowering and enriching to go to the panels," said O'Steen, who studies Anthropology and Community and Family Health.

One of the panels O'Steen attended focused on ways to ease the horrors of human and sex trafficking. That issue is very important to O'Steen, as she works for a Bay area group that provides safe houses for young sex trafficking victims.

At the UN, O'Steen said she got a lot of insight that could help that cause.

When she wasn't learning at the UN, O'Steen rallied on the streets of New York City and marched for the Commission of the Status of Women.

"Really powerful just to be in a march of that size," O'Steen said. "I think there was about 10,000 people there."

Now that she is back at USF, the graduate student is still processing her week at the UN.

O'Steen said she is determined to take what she has learned to educate others.