{"id":4,"date":"2015-04-16T05:29:32","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T05:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/?p=4"},"modified":"2015-04-16T22:03:12","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T22:03:12","slug":"the-road-less-traveled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/2015\/04\/16\/the-road-less-traveled\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road Less Traveled"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have never gone about things in traditional or expected ways. This hasn\u2019t always been a conscious decision, what I have wanted to do has never really aligned with what others are doing and I\u2019m not afraid to stray off the beaten path. Looking back, I believe this has a lot to do with the way I was raised. I grew up in Seattle with two extremely socially active and conscious parents. My up bringing made very aware of social justice and equality issues from a young age. Both my parents were successful in turning their passions into their vocations and were extremely involved in the community. Some of my earliest memories involve going with my Mom to her environmental law practice. It was from her that I first learned the value of lifelong learning, doing something you love and the importance of giving back.<\/p>\n

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Competing in Indio, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I rode horses competitively for 10 years. After high school, I chose\u00a0to take a gap year and move to Portland, OR to train and work full time\u00a0at one of the best show jumping barns on the West coast. This year\u00a0tested my determination and work ethic in many ways and pushed me out of my comfort\u00a0zone. I was surrounded by people who expected excellence and I was able to successfully compete at a national and international level. More importantly, I had the opportunity to experience working hard at something I was passionate about and spend time in a demanding environment where I was able to excel. This year was my first exposure to the feeling of turning a passion into a job.<\/p>\n

When I came to college, I was eager to find that feeling again. Santa Clara University\u2019s core values of competence, conscious and compassion resonate strongly with me and the Jesuit mission of social justice aligns closely with the way I was raised. I was ready to expand on these ideas, however my freshman year was the first time I had to navigate life without riding and I was forced to recognize that I had very little direction or sense of identity without it. I was concerned that I wouldn\u2019t ever find something I was interested enough to work in and that I would wind up with a typical office job that hated for lack of any better options. As I became more involved at Santa Clara, my worldview slowly started to expand.<\/p>\n

I have always been interested in medicine and healthcare, but it didn\u2019t seem like a career in it would be a good fit. On whim I took a few introductory economics courses and found that I loved learning about how global markets fit together and looking at how and why people make choices in different countries, particularly in the developing world. I am a very logical thinker and I enjoy looking at the big picture to figure out different ways to solve a problem. Pursuing economics and public health seemed like a clear choice because the two combine both of my interests and allow me to learn about global problems from two different perspectives.<\/p>\n

These two fields seemed completely disconnected until I went on a medical service trip to Ghana my sophomore year. Our group was tasked with setting up a mobile clinic in a rural community and then helping to treat patients and provide the prescribed medication. Not only was our group completely unqualified to doing this, it seemed like we were actively getting in the way of the local doctors who were also working in the clinic.<\/p>\n

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Some downtime in Ghana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I enjoyed speaking to the people in the community and playing with the kids during our public health lessons at the local school, but this trip\u00a0was definitely for us, not them. I struggled with how ineffectual or efforts felt. We were not contributing to a sustainable solution for the lack of healthcare access in the area and it seemed that we actually might have been making the problem worse. Once we got back to Santa Clara, our group had several discussions about how the healthcare system in Ghana could be improved. These discussions opened my eyes to how multifaceted the issue of poverty in developing countries is and how little I understood it. Every possible solution we talked for healthcare had ramifications for different parts of the community. It reminded me of a giant puzzle; all pieces would have to fit perfectly with each other in order for any solution to be effective. Figuring out ways to fit the pieces together in order to solve a problem is a challenge I find both interesting and exciting. Realizing so many factors were interconnected gave me an idea of how combined knowledge of economics and public health could be useful to me in the future.<\/p>\n

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Sankara Eye Care, Bangalore, India. (P.C. Sankara Eye Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My biggest take away from my experience in Ghana was that it can be very difficult to help local communities. External parties are not always effective in providing what a community needs and local organizations that fully understand the complex needs of an area are the key to generating sustainable change. While going to Ghana was a hugely important learning experience for me in many ways, I did not feel that I had a positive impact on the people I was trying to help. What\u00a0appeals to me most about the Global Social Benefit Fellowship is that it provides an opportunity to learn how to be part of an effective solution and apply the skills I have gained at Santa Clara in order add value to a social enterprise. Working with Sankara Eye Care seems like a natural way to combine my desire to create social impact and my interest in implementing frugal healthcare systems. I am ecstatic to be a part of this unique program and I cannot wait to see what learning the next nine months have in store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have never gone about things in traditional or expected ways. This hasn\u2019t always been a conscious decision, what I have wanted to do has never really aligned with what others are doing and I\u2019m not afraid to stray off the beaten path. Looking back, I believe this has a lot to do with the … Continue reading The Road Less Traveled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"mcdennis","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/author\/mcdennis\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"I have never gone about things in traditional or expected ways. This hasn\u2019t always been a conscious decision, what I have wanted to do has never really aligned with what others are doing and I\u2019m not afraid to stray off the beaten path. Looking back, I believe this has a lot to do with the…","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/mcdennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}