The last nine months have been a whirlwind of work, adventure, and self-discovery. It feels odd that our Fellowship experience has come to an end because I feel that my life was practically consumed by it in one way or another for the past nine months. I think back to the spring and I remember the research assignments and preparation process very well. However, when I think back to my time in India I hit a wall.

From the day I stepped foot back in the United States I have had an incredibly difficult time recounting my experience to others as well as to myself. In India I was pushed to my personal and professional limits and I found myself in many challenging situations. As soon as I returned home I became very appreciative of how easy, both emotionally and logistically, my “normal” life is. I became very grateful for all I have and all the opportunities I have before me, but I also began to distance myself from my experience in India.

Without meaning to I have put up a wall between my life here and my life in India. When I do give myself time to reflect on my experiences in Kolkata I am overcome with emotions… feelings of frustration, happiness, homesickness, accomplishment, and everything in between. All the positive and negative experiences have become intertwined into a complicated web of stories that is practically impossible to share with other people. However, for the sake of personal reflection and vocational discernment, I’ve tried to compartmentalize my thoughts in order to pinpoint how the fellowship experience has helped me learn more about my personality as well as my professional interests and goals.

A picture taken in iMerit’s Metiabruz office in between interviews.

GSBF as a springboard to the workforce and social entrepreneurship

I feel very fortunate for the action-research I was able to do for iMerit because I think that my project truly played to my academic and professional strengths. Since Monet, Kathryn and I all had separate projects it was up to me to develop, execute and report on my research and I had a great deal of autonomy throughout the entire process. This was an ideal structure because it allowed me to work independently and focus on the aspects of the research that I found to be the most interesting and pertinent to the needs of iMerit. I found the experience of drafting a research plan, executing it, analyzing the data and reporting on the findings to be both stimulating and rewarding. I can now say with confidence that I am a self-motivated and independent worker and I now know how important it is for me to have a substantial level of autonomy in my career.

My work with the fellowship has greatly helped me understand what I need and want from a workplace environment, but even more significant is the fact that the fellowship has introduced me to new career paths and passions that will undoubtedly shape my career decisions in the coming years. I feel as if someone just spent the last 9 months pitching social entrepreneurship to me – and I bought it. I never wanted to study business because I’m disturbed by the immoral things that are done for the sake of profit… I’ve tried to steer clear of non-profit for fear of getting sucked up into an organization that doesn’t have significant impact… and I avoided the idea of working for the government because I knew the bureaucratic structure would infuriate me. For me, social enterprise presents a solution to all of these problems. It makes sense to me because it is flexible and takes the best parts of business and charity to develop innovative solutions to previously unsolvable problems.

For me to pursue any career I need to have an underlying passion as well as a plan. No, my first job out of college will not allow me to save the world. But, if I am able to connect my job to a greater goal then I will have the motivation to do my job well and contribute to the organization to the best of my ability. Although I cannot predict what my job will be or what I will be doing at the job, I hope that it will connect to my larger goal: to work at the intersection of nonprofit, for profit, social enterprise and government to achieve large systems change that makes the country (or even the world) more equitable and prosperous for all.

I love the idea of social entrepreneurship because I hate being confined to outdated ideas and ineffective protocols. Social entrepreneurship is a way to think out of the box and find new, innovative solutions to problems, making up new rules in the process. I can definitely see myself working in social entrepreneurship and I would love to work at the sector-level, rather than with just one enterprise, because I think sector- and market-wide creation is essential to the success of the field. I’m not sure what my next step is professionally but I can say with certainty that my experiences thus far with social enterprise will undoubtedly shape my career choices in the coming years.

Kathryn, Monet and I on a commute home from iMerit’s Baruipur center.

GSBF as a process of self-reflection and appreciation

Beyond the vocational discernment I have been able to do as part of the fellowship I have also learned a great deal about myself on a personal level. I believe that self-awareness is paramount to everything else I do because it allows me to develop relationships with people, work effectively, and ultimately contribute to society. I must be at peace with myself before I can be of service to others and, due to my desire to achieve this self-awareness, I have spent a great deal of time contemplating how my time in India, and my overall Fellowship experience, have changed me as a person.

When I was in India I could sense the ways in which I was learning and growing on a personal level yet I was nervous to see which of these changes would linger after I returned to life in the U.S. After being back for several months I have been able to pinpoint several small but significant changes in my personality that have held up throughout my readjustment back to life in Oregon and California. For example, I have become less neurotic and uptight, and I am no longer stressed out by small details. Before my trip to India I had a tendency to become stressed out by little things or become frustrated when things did not go as I expected. This has always been a personal fault and something I want to work on, so I am happy that I have been able to improve myself in this way.

I think I have also gained an appreciation for the differences that exist between people and cultures. I have become better at adapting to the ways other people do things and can acknowledge differences between people as an asset rather than an impediment. India is such a large and diverse country and I feel lucky that I was able to interact with people of different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite the differences between me and each person I met, we were always able to find common ground, whether it be about school, work, our family, etc.

I could spend countless hours over analyzing how my time in India changed me, but unfortunately there is never enough time for such things. So, as I close this chapter of my life and begin new adventures, there is one specific thought that I will keep in mind: the idea of global citizenship. I went to a unique high school that taught International Baccalaureate curriculum and instills in students a feeling of global citizenship, teaching students how to “value diversity, ambiguity, and discovery and to act with responsibility, integrity, and compassion.” When I graduated from high school I thought I understood what it meant to be a global citizen, yet looking back now I don’t think I had truly grasped the concept. Even now there is still a great deal that I have to learn about the world and its people, but I think have come one step closer to understanding and appreciating the similarities and differences that exist between people and cultures. The GSB Fellowship has taught me so much in the last nine months and I hope to take the skills I have acquired and use them to continue learning for the rest of my life, no matter where I am or what I am doing.

On top of the Amber Fort in Rajasthan, India. 

“As we get more comfortable here it is becoming easier to overlook the poverty that constantly surrounds us, which is both a blessing and a curse. As we were riding to work this morning in a cab I briefly made eye contact with a man driving a Land Rover that was overflowing with passengers in the back. It reminded me that this is his reality, whereas for us it is merely a privilege to be a part of his world. It’s unsettling that we are witnessing people’s lives and that it is a privilege for us to witness such things.”

– Written in my journal on July 11^th 2014

I wrote a lot while in India, both on my public blog as well as in my journal, and found it was the best way to reflect on many things that happened each day. When I sat back to try to think about the communities I visited and the people I met, I found it really helpful to look back through past writings that trigger how I felt at certain points in time. If I think about my trip as a whole it is challenging to pinpoint specific events or people that forced me out of my comfort zone or to questions things I previously believed, but by honing in on specific events or experiences it is easier to describe the gradual transformations I underwent through out the duration of the trip.

Prior to going to India I had never been in one country (besides the U.S.) for more than three weeks at one time. At first I was worried that this would make my trip more challenging but I soon realized that this was actually helpful because I went to India with very few expectations and essentially no idea of what my life would be like once I got there. This was also beneficial because it meant that any interactions I had with local people and culture were easily more in-depth and meaningful than interactions I had with communities on previous trips. Unfortunately, since returning to California and getting back in the swing of school I’ve found it very challenging to really think about and reflect on my time in Kolkata. The moment I allow my mind to wander I become overwhelmed with all of the thoughts and feelings going around in my head. When I think about India my emotions range from pure joy to sadness and from relaxation to incredible stress. However, many of the positive experiences stemmed from interactions with people or experiencing certain aspects of a community, and descriptions of these experiences can help paint a picture of the ways in which such things shaped my physical and personal journey.

The Metiabruz Women

Since Kolkata is such a metropolitan area it was challenging to feel connected to a specific community, but by visiting delivery centers like Baruipur and Metiabruz I had a chance to experience less populated neighborhoods and get to know smaller areas. Although I only visited Metiabruz a handful of times I think that those visits provided the best opportunities for me to interact with a community and really speak to iMerit’s employees, who are also the company’s primary beneficiaries.

I feel very lucky that the majority of my research consisted of interviewing iMerit Team Leads because it allowed me to do my job while also getting to know locals and learning about their lives. One of the days I went out to the Metiabruz center I set up a meeting with Arfana, a Team Lead directing an image-tagging project, and I specifically remember when she walked into the office. She came in dressed in a full black chador but upon arriving in the office she casually shed the chador to reveal a beautiful pink outfit and matching earrings. I found it so interesting that she goes through so much effort to look nice, despite the fact that she cannot show her outfit on the street and therefore only her friends at the office get to see her that way. Thinking back to that moment now, I see this double-outfit scenario as a sign of her self-confidence and her desire to look good and feel good about herself regardless of how many people will see her looking nice. I also think that the juxtaposition of her two outfits represented the two worlds in which many of the Metiabruz women function – their home lives in a conservative Muslim community and their work lives in a progressive and tech savvy office atmosphere.

I think that the time I spent with the women in Metiabruz led me to truly contemplate my sense of both self-confidence as well as independence. I have always considered myself to be fairly independent compared to other people I spend time with in the U.S., but I was blown away the lack of independence that is available to the women in Metiabruz. I found it very challenging to interact with them because there were so few similarities between their lives and mine. There are so many things I do on a daily basis that are unheard of or unattainable to the women in Metiabruz, such as driving, going grocery shopping alone, or even wearing shorts. However, I made sure to remind myself that as an iMerit employee it was not my job to feel sorry for the women or try to make their lives more like my own. Rather, my job was to capitalize on the skills and motivation they do have to help bring about gradual change that will one day lead to greater opportunities for women in the community. My interaction with the women taught me a great deal about working in marginalized communities and how we can each learn from one another, rather than me working to thrust my values and and customs upon others. Metiabruz is rich with tradition and cultural pride and I truly believe there are ways in which the community can be improved and become more progressive without sacrificing cultural values and customs.

Monet and I pose with a groupf the Metiabruz women on top of the iMerit office building.

Kolkata as a City 

As I think back now I feel like I experienced two different types of “India,” one being the workplace environment and learning about the lives of the employees/beneficiaries, and a second world consisting of life outside the office, where Kolkata and India exist and function just like any other city. Many of the best experiences I had in Kolkata, as well as some of my favorite days  in India, occurred when I was exploring the city, either by myself or with Kathryn and Monet. One of my favorite things to do (even in my day-to-day life in the U.S.) is to go to a new place and simply walk around and explore, observing people and things that are happening. I’m fascinated by just watching life happen, and in a bustling and chaotic city like Kolkata there is always plenty happening.

I vividly remember the first Saturday I ventured out on my own and the triumph I felt after taking the metro all by myself for the first time to the Maidan area of downtown Kolkata. By this point in time Monet, Kathryn and I were pretty familiar with the area and since I had all but memorized the map I could safely wander with no plan of where I was going or what I was doing, without being scared or overwhelmed. I remember feeling pure elation as I weaved through vendors, animals and pedestrians on the sidewalks, strangely enjoying the feeling that no one really cared what I did or where I went. I think that exploring on one’s own is one of the best ways to experience a city because you are free to form your own opinions of things free from the judgment of others and the needs of a large group.

Walking and exploring on my own allowed me to see the day-to-day things that happen in Kolkata, many of which are not that different than what happens in San Jose, New York, or Paris: people go to work, people go grocery shopping, people hang out with friends, etc. Adventuring on my own also led me to one of the biggest realizations I had while in India, which is that we cannot assume someone is unhappy just because his or her own life is unlike our own. Although at many times I found Kolkata dirty, stressful, and difficult, to many people it is home in the same way in which San Jose and Eugene are homes to me. I think most people envy some aspects about another culture, and many Indians definitely embrace American culture, but at the end of the day it seems that the majority of people are very happy in their own culture, surrounded by friends and family.

Life happens every day, in all places, in all ways, and just because someone’s life is starkly different than my own does not mean it is worse. I’ve thought about this a great deal over the last few months because I think it has significant ramifications for how we think about international development – should we really impose our belief systems and customs on other cultures? Who is to say that one way of living is superior to another? This is obviously not a question I can fully answer but it is something I hope to come back to through out my career and travels.

A few pictures from things I discovered while exploring Kolkata solo.  

As I mentioned, I feel like my time in India was divided between my experiences with iMerit and my time as a citizen/tourist – tourizen? – in Kolkata. Both of these environments forced me far out of my comfort zone on multiple occasions, and I can’t explain how easy life back in the U.S. now feels. I have gained a deeper appreciation for the life I have been given and I have been able to pinpoint the things that truly matter to me, both on a personal level as well as a community level. I think that each person we meet and each place we visit has something to teach us and I have a new found love for experiencing things that are different and challenging, primarily because being bored is simply a waste of time.

“To me travel is a triple delight: anticipation, performance, and recollection.” — Ilka Chase

 At the end of my fifth grade year at Edison Elementary School each student was instructed to choose his or her unique “Fifth Grade Word.” I remember my best friend choosing the word “bubbly,” as well as the competition between numerous girls and boys for the use of “athletic.” While telling my mom about the project, she suggested that I use the word “inquisitive.” My fifth grade vocabulary was not familiar with the word, but after she helped me understand what it meant, I thought it was a perfect way to describe myself. Looking back, I think her suggestion came mainly from her exhaustion with my constant questioning and ongoing monologue.

On a recent hike at Castle Rock State Park in Saratoga, CA. 

I was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, a unique city where people value individualism, the outdoors, and the University of Oregon. I developed a great appreciation for personal health and self-reflection and I feel that I have already spent a great deal of time working to develop my personal vocation and life goals.

I am very close with my parents and my siblings and I don’t think I can accurately describe myself without acknowledging the various roles they have each played in my life. My parents are my best friends, my biggest fans, my mentors, and my support system. As I have grown older I’ve greatly enjoyed discovering the ways in which I am both similar and different to each of them, as well as being very grateful for all they do for me.

I have also been greatly influenced by my three siblings, who are 29, 37 and 40. They are all married and two of them also have children, which gives me one angelic niece and two rambunctious nephews. Growing up with siblings that are so much older than me has helped me to always look ahead in my future and think about where I want to be and who I want to be. I have been able to observe, be a part of, and learn from their personal, college and work experiences and learn from their good decisions and a few of their mistakes.

College has been an incredibly formative time in my life because it has been heartbreakingly difficult for me to be away from my family for such long periods of time. My strong relationships with my parents and siblings are double-edged swords that give me much to be thankful for and also much to miss. College has forced me out of my comfort zone in more ways than I can describe, but it has also taught me how to make new friends, how to be open to new experiences, and how to handle difficult situations on my own. The most interesting part of college has been my ongoing journey to discover who I am, where I am comfortable, and what I want out of the next few years of my life.

My parents and siblings at my sister Petrel’s wedding in Ojai, CA.

I am a Political Science major and have loved learning about other cultures through the study of history and government. However, after several interesting political science classes I started to become very frustrated with the amount of things in the world that seem to be going wrong. Studying social entrepreneurship has allowed me to learn about the things that are going right, and participating in this Fellowship gives me an opportunity to play a role in these positive efforts.

I feel blessed to have a supportive family, a great education, and a healthy body. I am unnerved by the fact that many people lack one or all of these things, which I think is the overall catalyst for my desire to work in social entrepreneurship, politics, and public service. I would like to help people have healthy and fulfilling lives that will allow them to develop themselves and contribute to the world in a positive way. I was born with many advantages and I hope to provide opportunities to those who were not born in similar situations.

I am a very introspective person, which I believe will help ground me while I immerse myself in a new country and try to understand a different culture. I am very conscientious and enjoy having time to work independently. However, I also enjoy having substantive conversations that allow me to understand others’ opinions. I am a goal-oriented, meticulous planner so I am very attracted to the idea of having a set research plan and tangible goals.

While I greatly value down time that allows me to reflect and unwind, I don’t think I will ever be truly satisfied with my life unless I do things that are a bit out of the ordinary, unpredictable, and perhaps life changing. I hope to one day settle down and live a calm life, but I think I must first push myself out of my comfort zone and experience more of the world.

My mom/best friend and me.

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