I’ve always gone with my gut. I found that this is the best way to fully understand oneself and the world around you. Growing up in La Jolla, California I can confidently say I was exposed to a skewed perception of our world in many ways. Crowded beaches were my only opportunities to experience natural beauty, the neighborhoods I explored were full of oversized houses and expensive cars, this I took for granted. I played sports, biked with my friends, and enjoyed the year round sunshine. I was always told how lucky I am to have grown up in “America’s Finest City,” but something about that always seemed incomplete about my understanding of the world around me.

It wasn’t until high school that I began to gain new perspective. I joined an on-campus club called “Interact” (the student division of Rotary International) whose members set up and managed food-drives, car washes, bake sales, raffles, as well as participated in other community events to both enrich the community and collect food/money for local charities. While I found these events to be enjoyable and rewarding, they often seemed to be disconnected from the heart of the problem itself. I couldn’t help but wonder, were we really empowering anyone?

My eyes were eventually opened to the heart several times. I was fortunate to travel to Tijuana, Mexico for several day trips home building events with around twelve volunteers and I. Our trip consisted of a 2 hour drive south into a community of small homes with dirt roads and clear poverty. I was shocked to see that only a short car ride from my neighborhood, thousands were living without access to reliable sanitation, electricity, and clean water. I felt that I had taken my first step into a larger world of poverty that I had known little about.

My second step took me a to a farming community in Belize, the smallest country in Central America. Through my local church I participated in a week long mission trip to construct the foundation for a hurricane shelter next to the local one-room school. We were a group of around 18 Americans who all wished to help a community through sweat and hard work. Temperatures reached the 100s while we were there and the humidity was exhausting, but we all left feeling that we had made an impact on a community in need. Here I was exposed to a different kind of poverty, though most people lived in very small, simple homes on dirt roads and primarily relied on farming to meet their basic necessities, there seemed to be a sense of contentness among the community that I had rarely seen in my own.

Upon reflection, I see these events as having been critical to developing a sense of connection to the larger environmental and public health challenges we see today, but at the time I lacked the perspective to understand how these events were indicative of the larger challenges at stake, where I fit into the picture, and if I was really making a difference.

I can confidently say that my time and experiences at Santa Clara have given me that perspective in many ways and have radically changed who I am and the way I see the world today. When choosing a major, I went in direction that none of my family had pursued or discussed before. I felt strongly connected to my AP Environmental Science class senior year and enjoyed my lengthy conversations with my professor about the subject matter and the larger context of topics like climate change, industrial agriculture, GMOs, and plastic pollution in the ocean. I felt a draw toward these issues and that learning about and addressing these challenges would open doors to opportunity and understanding I could never find in La Jolla, CA. I went with my gut.

My time at Santa Clara has helped me dive into better understanding the global sustainability challenges we face in ways I could have never envisioned growing up. As and Environmental Science major and an Entrepreneurship minor I see myself working at the crux of how we view and interact with our environment for the subsistence it provides us, the spiritual immersion it gives us, and its dynamic beauty that can be found throughout our world (among many others). Exposing myself to education in both a business and science realm has introduced me to a holistic understanding of how our physical environment and business environment operate, and how they can work together. My experiences leading Into the Wild (our outdoor adventure organization here on campus) trips have also given me a sense of community and a way to further my exposure to the natural beauty that is hard to come by in Santa Clara, CA. I have seen the way the profound sense of awe in a wilderness context humbles both myself and those around me. From this I have learned how ones physical context has on one’s perception, attitude, and understanding of the world. My time abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark also gave me the opportunity to see how sustainability and social challenges are viewed in the context of a more progressive and collaborative culture than my own. Here I was able to envision where other countries could be with a rethinking of the way we conduct our societal systems.

I see my opportunity with this fellowship as a critical step toward applying my skills, knowledge, and experiences from Santa Clara in the context of a business that has taken a major step, among many, toward reshaping the way we conduct business around the world. I hope to continue to fuel my passion for addressing global challenges through business leadership during my time working with Jibu in Uganda and Rwanda. I see Jibu’s impact as critically indicative of the fact that we can rethink the way the way we conduct business. It requires creativity, a vision, but most importantly passionate leadership and going with your gut, even if it may seem unreasonable, for a mission greater than profit. We must understand that there is no one size fits all solution to problems like global poverty, climate change, disease, and pollution, but it is critical that we are educated, passionate, and involved in reshaping our relationship with each other and our environment for a better future. I wish to be a part of this change and know that the solutions lie at the heart of practical experience working with informed perspective.