Dear graduates,

This post is dedicated to all of you who are getting ready to graduate from the University Bubble.


As some of you might recall from reading my earlier posts, as I prepared to graduate from college I felt like a lost, little black sheep.  Throughout the year, my classmates had been preparing for job fairs and applying for positions with prestigious companies, and I was.... not.  And beyond this, I often felt unsupported by the engineering school which seemed to be so traditional in the types of career paths for which it advocated. There seemed to be no framework set up to help someone like me.  Maybe there really was no framework, or maybe I just couldn't see it, but the funny thing is that since graduating, I have been asked many times by staff and administrators to share my "unconventional" story.  In the past year, CIT has published a story about me called A Career Without Borders, and my experiences have been highlighted in the engineering brochure distributed to prospective students, and also in a brochure on Women in Engineering.  I've also received emails from CMU students I've never met, asking about some of the things I've done and how they can get involved in similar projects and organizations.


The point is not that I've received all of this recognition.  The validation feels good (although I am personally working to not be dependent on this kind of external approval) but more importantly, it just goes to show CMU really respected and had faith in me all along and that people who follow their heart and listen to their own voice are respected.  It doesn't matter so much what you do; what matters is who you are, and, as Thoreau said, whether you go "confidently in the direction of your dreams."  It is scary to stray from the beaten path.  I remember I felt like I had just jumped into the deep end, and was feverishly treading water just to stay afloat because I didn't have a plan. It was exhausting.  But finally I stopped searching anxiously for a lifeguard or something to grab onto and I realized that if I just extended my legs, I could stand up on firm ground.  I was liberated; I took my first strokes and set off on my journey.  


One of the things I appreciate most about the four years I spent at Carnegie Mellon is that I'm still connected  - even though a year has passed and I'm an ocean away.  Yes, I am still subscribed to the Engineers Without Borders mailing list, and I still get emails from Sustainable Earth and CIT (the Engineering school) and general updates about the University and Alumni Events.  But more significantly, I'm in regular correspondance with the mentors with whom I developed close relationships during my time in Pittsburgh.  And now, as I prepare to take another leap of faith when my internship comes to an end next month, these connections provide me with ideas and support for the next stage of my journey. 


In a couple weeks, you will take your first leap of faith.  Up until this point, the "system" has pretty much decided for you that you will go to school between September and May, and you will have the summers free to make mini decisions about how to spend your time.  But now there's no more system - no more structure.  Whether or not you have a map of what lies ahead, trust yourself and know that soon you will land on two feet.  And in the meantime, while you're treading water, remember the resources and relationship that you established over the past four years - they will be your lighthouse.

Leap of Faith

שלום‎ and مرحبا ! 

Last spring, I began my quest for the unconventional, high-impact, post-college adventure, and now, one year later, I am writing to you from Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava Valley of southern Israel.  My home is running distance from Jordan, and a 30 minute drive from both the Jordanian and Egyptian border crossings.  There are big and beautiful desert mountains in my backyard, in which I like to frolic at all times of day and night.  In my immediate community, I co-habitate with Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Americans, one Finnish guy, a Brazilian, an Argentinian, a French woman, a South African, and a Canadian.  And in my larger community, we eat cucumbers and hummus together in the dining hall and put our laundry in a shared system.  There are families with beautiful children running around and giving out hugs, and soccer tournaments, and volunteers milking cows and working in the date orchard, and Shabbat dinners, and holiday celebrations, and camels.  But let me back up...


In between the Ecuador and Colorado trips I led with RLT (see post: Summertime), I applied for a couple more jobs: to help build a new National Park in Patagonia; to work on an eco-village in Panama; to be a math teacher at the Green School in Bali, Indonesia.  And then I applied for one more: an internship at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, an environmental, peace-building institute where forty 20-30 year-old Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Internationals come together to learn about and address regional environmental issues.  


I first learned about AIES from a mass email I got (note: mass emails may hold the key to help unlock your destiny!!) from the environmental organization at CMU called Sustainable Earth, promoting a summer program through Dickinson College to study scarce resources at the Institute. I had actually applied to the summer program (to which I was not accepted... as I missed the memo that it was targeted to professionals and not recent graduates) and then decided to revisit their website to see if they offered internships.  Turns out that they DO!, and the experience described on the website seemed to encompass many things I was looking for: it was international, environmental, agricultural, people-oriented, intellectually challenging, water-related, in a beautiful and natural location, not purely a desk job, etc.


So I applied, and a couple weeks later, I was offered the internship with the Center for Transboundary Water Management at AIES, to work with Clive Lipchin - an expert on water policy and management in Israel and the Middle East region.  I got my Visa and on September 11th I hopped on a plane (along with many Orthodox jews) to the holy land.


I arrived to this foreign place after a ten hour flight on which I did not sleep, in a new time zone seven hours ahead of New York, and without a cell phone or an understanding of the language.  I was exhausted and overwhelmed and nervous and lonely, and after a train ride from the airport to the bus station, and a five hour bus ride to the kibbutz on which the Institute is located, I reached my new home and practically burst into tears.  Well that's not exactly true. First we played ice breakers and met the program coordinators.  Then I couldn't remember anybody's name.  Then I entered my room. Then I smelled my room. Then I saw the nakedness of the walls and the ugly curtains.  Then I burst into tears.  


WHAT WAS I THINKING??! WHY did I decide to go so far away from everything I knew!!? WHAT ON EARTH was I doing here?!? I remember calling my mom on Skype and her telling me to take a shower, relax and go to sleep, and that when I woke up in the morning it would feel better.  Then I chatted online with a friend who had spent two years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, and had just moved to Peru on a Fulbright scholarship a couple weeks earlier.  He assured me the same thing: the first couple days in a new country are a rough adjustment... it's normal to feel like you made THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF YOUR LIFE.  But it gets better.


Aaaaand I hereby declare to you that it TOTALLY DOES.