Justice for all

So…I’m graduating tomorrow! And I suppose that means that I need to write an obligatory blog post reflecting on my college years. As I sit in my bedroom packing all my belongings into two suitcases and two boxes (yet again), I can’t help but look back on the person I was when I stepped foot on Northwestern’s beautiful campus. I’ve changed and grown immensely in the past 4 years, and while I may never be fully content or satisfied with myself, I do think I’m proud of the woman I’ve transformed into through the course of my college experience.

And transformed, I think, is certainly the right word. As a freshman, I was shy, almost painfully so. I even tried to avoid taking discussion-based classes because I knew I’d be too afraid to open my mouth and contribute. I was also utterly confused about my professional interests and future career path. At first I chose to major in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS), a program that was essentially an accelerated math and economics-focused major. I quickly realized it wasn’t right for me, and decided to take a political science class instead - Law in the Political Arena. I fell in love, and changed my majors to Political Science and Economics. Professionally, I tried to pursue finance at first - like every other clueless Economics major - but eventually realized that wasn’t my passion. While I’d always enjoyed volunteering, I’d never truly analyzed this impulse, nor had I realized that one could work full-time for a non-profit. This awareness, too, came with time.

While the classes I took certainly helped me discover what I wanted to pursue for my future career, I think I learned far more out of class. I took advantage of so many opportunities on and off campus. I reported for The Daily Northwestern, joined student volunteerism groups like OASIS, LIFT, and Campus Kitchens, studied abroad in London, traveled across Europe, attended trials in the Hague with the ICC Student Network, helped start a student-run microfinance and development institute, interned in New York, Geneva, and Chicago for human rights non-profits, lead our university’s chapter of Amnesty International, and wrote a Political Science senior thesis on international justice and reconciliation in Rwanda and Sierra Leone. In the past couple of years, I think I’ve learned as much (if not more) from blogging and tweeting, than from all my other more ‘formal’ extracurriculars put together!

The lesson I can impart is that what you do outside the classroom is truly what defines you. You can have academic debates all you want, but it is through student groups that you learn how to work as part of a team and how to manage others. It is through individual research experiences that you learn to choose and define your own research question, collect your own data, and come to your own conclusions. It is through your study abroad semester or year that you broaden your mindset, adopt new viewpoints, and dramatically expand your understanding of different cultures and the world as a whole. It is through summer internships that you discover your passion for a specific field (or lack thereof), learn the skills needed to succeed professionally, and embark on a fulfilling career path. I’ve learned so much from my involvement outside the classroom - particularly regarding what I wanted from my future career - and I only wish I had done even more!

People often say that a liberal arts education is simply not worth it - that it is too expensive, and too theoretical. It’s true that liberal arts degrees often don’t prepare you very well for the real world in terms of providing concrete vocational skills, but I have personally found it an invaluable experience. Being forced to speak out in class, participate in discussions, debate, think critically, conduct original research, write long and cohesive papers, and present a logical and strong argument have all helped me grow into someone more confident and more knowledgeable. I enjoyed my liberal arts education, and while it’s certainly not for everyone, I think it has certainly strengthened a number of my weaknesses.

The next step of my life will be centered around adjusting to a non-university atmosphere. My next challenge lies in going from a situation where I’m constantly engaged in intellectual debate and surrounded by five different activities to one in which I’ll be thoroughly focused on one thing: my job. Having a restless personality, I will likely take up side projects as well, but still - all my attention will be focused on work. So I certainly hope I love what I do! Another challenge will be figuring out my long-run career path. I am interested broadly in public interest law, but within that I am interested in immigrant rights (particularly immigrant detention), asylum law, civil legal aid, public defense, and international legal aid/access to justice work. This sounds like a wide range of areas, and it is, but I hope to more concretely explore these fields in the next few years, prior to law school.

I’ve grown and changed a lot throughout undergrad, and I think I’m happy with the person I am today - someone dedicated to social change and to advocating on behalf of poor and marginalized populations. That was not the person I was as a naive freshman, and this was not my philosophy at the time. However, I’ve arrived at this belief again, through my extracurricular activities, social media, and the people I’ve met passionate about similar work - not through anything I learned in school. I’m still figuring out which is the best route for me to achieve change and justice, but the fact that this is now what I’m fighting for means, hopefully, that I’m on my way to finding something more than a job or a career - a calling.

Thanks Northwestern for a great four years, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

There is a lot of talk of personal branding these days: is it good or bad? How can you build a network of people who respect your personal brand? How can you join a group of people with the same interests to help you make professional connections?

But while we are busy trying to carve an online space for ourselves and create a community of supporters who rally around our “brand”, we forget that the online space we inhabit is also continuously is defining us - and indeed, changing us in ways simultaneously subtle and not-so-subtle.

For instance, when I first got into social media - Twitter, blogging and the like - I was interested, yes, in human rights issues. But the interest was not as full blown of a passion as it is now. Why the change? I attribute much of it to the network I tapped into, which in turn started shaping me.

I began following more and more human rights activists, non-profit leaders, social entrepreneurs, and others in the social space. As I began following people incredibly passionate about bettering the world, it made me a better person. I tapped into these networks, engaged in conversations, and sat back and listened to some of the smartest people in the world debate issues in the human rights, social change, and development arena. And by becoming part of the conversation, I became more and more passionate about these issues myself.

Social media, the blogosphere, and Twitter helped me find my singular passion. Before Twitter, there were always many ideas and many interests swirling around in my head. But after I began actively engaging on Twitter, I learned more fundamentally, who I was. By choosing who to “follow” and dedicate my brain space to — and by choosing who to “unfollow” and ignore — I realized what I personally cared about most. What issues, careers, and industries resonated with me the most.

Social media made me a better person. By surrounding myself by people who genuinely cared, and not only that, cared in an intelligent manner (and yes, there is a distinction) — I began caring more. And more intelligently.

What’s true in real life is also true on the web. Surround yourself with good, smart people, and you will become more like them. Your friends can exert a positive influence on you and make you a better person, or you can fall into bad company and go downhill.

This may sound overdramatic to you, but I swear it’s not. Some people are born knowing what they want to do: be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant even. They are lucky. I’ve never been that way. I have always had too many interests to narrow down to a single career that would define who I was for the rest of my life (a scary thought, right?). My passions didn’t always fit into the traditional career path. Social media helped me jump into the conversation and find what I really wanted. By finding many more outside my small real-life social circle doing exactly what I loved for a living, I felt my career interests to be validated. I found the courage to follow my heart, knowing that many others out there were also doing so, and sometimes breaking free of societal constraints in the process.

You don’t just create an online network that mirrors your own traits — your online network defines you, and even has the power to change you fundamentally.

Are you engaging with people who make you stronger, more brave, more caring, more intelligent, more informed?

Do you push yourself to join networks that challenge you to be better and to achieve your dreams?

Stop tweeting about what you had for breakfast, or your horrible job. Start conversations with those who intimidate you, with those who you breathlessly admire. Be bold. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get there too.

How does your online community define and shape who you are?

Maybe it’s just me, but I increasingly see a problem with activism: it can easily slip from passion to elitism. I’ll be honest; as I became more passionate about human rights issues, I started feeling incredibly upset. I started wondering: “Why doesn’t everyone else care? How can they hear about genocide, conflict, women’s rights, torture, lack of access to justice, and not do something about it?” And yes, it made me mad, it made me frustrated and disappointed. But I realized that while I can try to encourage some people to care, many of them just won’t. I also realized that simply because they have different priorities in life, it doesn’t mean they can’t still play a role in activism - and it certainly doesn’t mean that they are “bad” people. Indeed, instead of getting angry at all these people, I should continue to work on human rights issues myself and continue trying to involve them in my work. Ultimately, inclusion will be far more effective than anger.

A lot of activism - whether related to human rights, development, or any NGO work - can turn off the general public when it becomes elitist. It becomes a battle of morals and can even lead to looking down upon those who don’t donate, who don’t seem to care about the issue, who don’t come to events/participate in your non-profit, etc. People start thinking they are “better” simply because they care more. In the case of some development and human rights issues, it starts to seem like the average joe is dismissed as completely ignorant.

But of course, this isn’t realistic. It’s not realistic to expect everyone to be passionate about the same thing; everyone has different roles in life. Not everyone is cut out to be an activist/non-profit person/social entrepreneur. People have their own talents, skills, interests. And an activist is not, in any particular way, a more selfless person than a non-activist. It is just too simplistic of an assumption.

Ultimately, elitism isn’t going to get activists anywhere. Instead of alienating people, activists need to be patient about reaching out to everyone. I feel that there is even some amount of elitism in the online community because I can tell a lot of young people are feeling left out from the discussion. Those who don’t know as much about the issue feel they cannot contribute. I feel that’s one of the reasons Nick Kristof succeeds, because he appeals to the everyday person while also bringing up important issues. He gets people to care and makes everyone feel like they have a say in social change, whether or not they are ‘experts’ or NGO professionals.

Not everyone is going to be an expert on your cause or topic, but that’s also not reason enough to write them off immediately. Yes, everyone has a different role in life — yet, I think every person has the time to contribute in some way to social change. I genuinely believe that everyone can become more informed & civically engaged, but only if activists take the time to make sure that they are being inclusive and making everyone feel like they can play a role. Bottom line? Social change needs everyone - not just NGO experts or scholars. This requires more inclusion, less alienation.

I’m going to break the news: I now work in the corporate world.

I guess with all the posts I’ve written on my blog, it is understandable for one to assume I would look for a job in the non-profit sector after graduation and go “save the world”.

Look, this is where it gets tricky. I would love to work with like-minded individuals on community projects directly, but at the same time there is a big pool of untapped Gen Y talent out there that I feel the world could benefit from. The main reason why I haven’t blogged in awhile is that the ones who read my blog are also extremely passionate and, for the most part, agree with what I have to say. Trust me, it feels really good to have people comment, “Ruby, you’re so right. I too feel the same way and I’m so glad you wrote this…etc.” But what’s the point of preaching to the choir that already cares? I know I need to be doing more.

This is why I ventured out to the “dark side”, so that I can stand up to people who challenge my idealism, bridge the gap between for-profit and non-profit, explore market-based development solutions through enterprise, understand the impact of social capital, design human-centric systems that are resilient and responsible, and at the same time acquire the practical skills needed to truly effect change.

I believe all of us do care about one another and the world, but not all of us have an outlet to translate that into real actions. Muhammad Yunus said in his book, “Many young people today feel frustrated because they cannot recognize any worthy challenge that excites them within the present capitalist system. When you have grown up with ready access to the consumer goods of the world, earning a lot of money isn’t a particularly inspiring goal.” I see myself as that point of contact, for those who want to be involved but are unsure how, those who wonder how they can make money and change the world at the same time, or those who just want to be pointed to the right resources to learn more.

Everyone has a different battlefield and at the moment, this is mine. I will tell you the truth – it’s sometimes hard, real hard, to get up every morning to face the world. It is uncomfortable, and I get hurt sometimes. But I am still determined to change some minds and hearts, one person at a time. Not one day when I am rich, not one day when I retire - just right now, everyday, and I will do what I can. This is me stepping up, in hopes to be joined by many others in my generation, so together we make the world a better place. I feel so restless seeing the gap between my vision and the current reality, but for now, we just got to keep going.

The Changemaker

Ruby Ku is a 23-year-old who enjoys being busy and wishes there was more than 24 hours in a day. She blogs at I Care where she shares her stories on working towards a better world. She lives in Toronto and loves coffee, the internet, cameras, nature and people.

Also catch her on Twitter @rubyku!

If I could advocate for one cause, it would be clean and portable water solutions.

For the past year, I’ve been wrestling with the notion of getting those around me to care about a social issue, any social issue. Over coffee dates, workshops, team meetings the night before a final exam, I’ve met and re-met with like-minded individuals trying to brainstorm ways in which to get Gen Y to take ownership of leadership for the sake of the world. Only recently have I realized the selfish motives in convincing others to be passionate about my passions.

I met (the very charming) Sol Guy at the 2008 Impact National Conference. With shaking knees and blushing cheeks, I asked him how to get people around me to care? And Sol, in all his wisdom, told me this, “You just keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t worry about everybody else, they’ll come later, but for now, just keep going.”

The truth is, what I’m passionate about may not be exactly what you are passionate about. In fact, you may never be passionate about the issues in which I am. And it’s taken awhile, but I think that’s ok. I’ve experienced the difficulty in getting people to care about any sort of social issue, so how much more the social issues that I’m passionate about? This does not mean I’ll stop advocating for the 1.1 billion citizens of the Earth that lack clean water (I will engage in that conversation given the most miniscule opportunity), but I’ve moved from over-zealously trying to convince, to trying to inspire.

I embarked on my ultimate graduation trip to Malawi this summer and met a well-educated 20-something Malawian. She told me that her sister was in Canada and when asked if she planned on joining her, she smiled softly and replied “No, because if I don’t help Malawi, who will?” And in the exchange of that simple sentence, I too was convinced that I should also help Malawi. Not because she gave me a comprehensive lesson outlining the economic hardships of the small nation, but because in the simple exchange of that sentence, I saw her passion and was inspired. I saw that whether people joined her along the way or not, she was going to continue to do what she was doing.

Alice Walker said “Activism is my rent for living on this planet”. Activism, like rent, is not optional. It should not depend on the person next door paying their rent as well. And so this is why I’m deciding to “Be the Change”, because I’ve been living for free my whole life. I’m going to be the change by inspiring, not convincing, and just doing what I’m doing in hopes that one day, my rent will be paid off.

The Changemaker

Kristina Lugo is 22-year-old new grad recently venturing into the corporate world. She just started a new blog and tweets @kristinalugo. She loves travelling, photography, sushi, and london fogs. One day she hopes to combine her passions for math and international development and start a social venture.