My college experience is filled with so many coulda-woulda-shouldas. I wish I'd figured out what I wanted to do with my life sooner, I wish I'd gotten involved in extracurriculars sooner, and I wish I could have minored in international development.
I've found other ways to learn about development though. I'm involved in a club called Students for International Development and I signed up to be on a committee to help coordinate their biggest event of the year--the Hunger Banquet.
The more I learn about development, the more convinced I become that girls are the answer. I've also watched two documentaries lately that I'd recommend to anyone. One is called "Darfur Now" and the other "No End in Sight." These documentaries highlight how complicated development is. The first is about six people around the globe who are working to stop the genocide in Darfur. The second is about the poor policy decisions that led to the current quagmire in Iraq. It makes your heart ache for all the devastation that could have been avoided had people simply had a clue what they were doing. (And it really makes you hate Donald Rumsfeld.)
I guess the point of this post is that I think these past few weeks, I've zeroed in on a life goal: I want to be one of those people in government who knows what they're doing. And I've realized that the worst mistake you can make with regards to development is to think you can help people better than they can help themselves.
The hitch is this: In order to help people help themselves, you have to speak their language (literally and figuratively). You can't just be a suit-and-tie in D.C. trying to help people you know nothing about, whose culture you've never studied, whose homeland you have never beento, whose language you don't speak.
I've been inspired to devote myself to my studies so I can be of greater help later on. I'm happy that I changed my major to political science, and happy to be learning Arabic. Even though elementary education was a good major, and you can certainly help a lot of people by doing that too, I just feel a greater pull to what I'm doing now.
I've found other ways to learn about development though. I'm involved in a club called Students for International Development and I signed up to be on a committee to help coordinate their biggest event of the year--the Hunger Banquet.
The more I learn about development, the more convinced I become that girls are the answer. I've also watched two documentaries lately that I'd recommend to anyone. One is called "Darfur Now" and the other "No End in Sight." These documentaries highlight how complicated development is. The first is about six people around the globe who are working to stop the genocide in Darfur. The second is about the poor policy decisions that led to the current quagmire in Iraq. It makes your heart ache for all the devastation that could have been avoided had people simply had a clue what they were doing. (And it really makes you hate Donald Rumsfeld.)
I guess the point of this post is that I think these past few weeks, I've zeroed in on a life goal: I want to be one of those people in government who knows what they're doing. And I've realized that the worst mistake you can make with regards to development is to think you can help people better than they can help themselves.
The hitch is this: In order to help people help themselves, you have to speak their language (literally and figuratively). You can't just be a suit-and-tie in D.C. trying to help people you know nothing about, whose culture you've never studied, whose homeland you have never beento, whose language you don't speak.
I've been inspired to devote myself to my studies so I can be of greater help later on. I'm happy that I changed my major to political science, and happy to be learning Arabic. Even though elementary education was a good major, and you can certainly help a lot of people by doing that too, I just feel a greater pull to what I'm doing now.
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