Back at my undergraduate institution, I always ran into a problem. I could never find students interested in the same thing that I was. I’m an economics and political science major, so I love to discuss international politics and economics, and I love hearing and talking about what’s going on in the world around me. I don’t know what it was, but I’ve always had a hard time finding people to talk to about such topics. Back home, I found myself surrounded by students of all disciplines - medicine, psychology, science, religion, engineering, journalism. But since each person I knew had such diverse interests, it was difficult to get a large group of friends who wanted to talk about social science.
After coming to LSE, I finally found my niche. Everyone here, is after all a social science major. Every person I meet is studying economics or law or international history or human rights or health policy. Whatever it is, it’s something to do with understanding the world around us, understanding the way institutions work, and about the interplay of economic, political, and social forces. And whatever they’re studying — it’s guaranteed to be incredibly international. I can go up to any random student here, and I’m sure that we could easily begin a heated debate about social policy or the ICC or industrialization or Keynesian economics. I found my niche, and it’s so intellectual yet fun.
So when I started this blog, I wanted to focus on something even more specific that I love - human rights & international law. I had so enjoyed being part of conversation and debate offline, and I wanted to see if I could shift this conversation online, and find even more young people interested in similar topics. There are so many incredible bloggers writing about human rights…but somehow I’m having difficulty connecting to them. Maybe it’s because I’m so much younger? I’m only 19 after all. Most people writing about these topics seem to have attended law school, while I’m just an interested undergrad. And to be honest, my inexperience makes me afraid to comment on many of these great blogs. And many of those blogs I’ve mentioned are wonderful - but they seem to solely provide news and information for people in the field. I want to connect with bloggers who write about these issues as well as have a personal voice. I want to actually meet and befriend people, because this is so much more valuable than simply getting hits to your blog.
Essentially, I feel caught between the “Gen Y” blogging world - people excited about social media and personal branding, wanting to meet others and have conversations online - and the “Human rights/international law” world - composed of bloggers who, for the most part, post great information but don’t seem to forge personal connections online as much. I’m probably making some vast generalizations here, but this is what I’ve experienced so far in my limited blogging experience. And I’m wondering how I can bridge these two worlds. And how I can get more courage to connect with those bloggers that I do admire.
Any tips? How do you make personal connections with people in your field?
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