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Four Years Later, Three Stories Down
Oh, the places we’ve gone
By Marta Darby
The Class of 2005’s commencement meant many things for many people, but one thing for all — that imminent scattering was inevitable.
There were those who couldn’t bear to leave. And so they stayed. Others went on to grueling medical school schedules or off to New York’s investment banks and media enterprises. There were those who set off to save the world in its faraway reaches, and still some who left to kick back, “just for a season”, ski-bum style.
But after four years, ambitions have changed and unexpected opportunities have arisen. While some have remained steadfast in their direction, many of us have wavered.
Below is a look at three such cases.
Kate Carolan
For most of her first three years after graduation, Kate Carolan worked as a Spanish teacher at an inner-city Chicago high school, a position she initially found through Teach for America. It was an experience, Carolan said, that “opened [her] eyes.”
“It was a good move and I loved the experience,” said Carolan, who added that she hopes to continue working with teenagers. “What I've come to realize through teaching is that it is mentoring. In order to gain kids’ trust and allow them to be vulnerable with you, you have to be real and vulnerable with them.”
During her third year at the high school, Kate launched a Gay Straight Alliance group. Through this organization, Kate was able to reach out even more to the students, making impromptu visits with them to museums and events on the weekends.
And, despite leaving the Chicago school system at the end of the 2007-2008 school year, Carolan has kept in touch with some of the students, checking in on them “to make sure all is going well.”
And while Carolan says she won’t return to classroom teaching anytime soon, she would like to work with high-school aged students in the future.
“I would love to be an exec at a nonprofit or with a community initiative, or even fill a non-classroom teaching role with a city school,” she said.
It was her stated desire to work in such an organization that led her to her current position as an associate consultant for Model Metrics, a Web-based consulting firm partnered with Salesforce.com.
At Model Metrics, Carolan is an internal consultant, developing work-efficiency protocols in the sales-operation side of the business. It is a role that has allowed Carolan to reconnect with the tech-savvy world, after spending “three years away from technology.”
One day, Carolan says she plans to put the skills she is learning in the private sector to use in the public realm, following through on her ambition to work with teenagers.
As for the immediate future, Carolan plans to continue working for the consulting company.
“It’s headed in a positive and innovative direction. I have lots to learn in my job now — it’s challenging,” Carolan said.
Sabrina Singh
Upon leaving the Big Green, Sabrina Singh set her sights on publishing, later moving into the public sector and education. Immediately after graduation, she moved to another “Big” — this time, the Apple — to work for Random House in its publicity department.
For two years, Singh pitched political and literary nonfiction to reviewers and organized author tours and events. She also assisted publicists by escorting the likes of Maya Angelou and Bill Bradley around New York.
In June 2007, Singh moved from the publishing world into the education realm with a roughly eight-month stint at the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. At NFTE, she organized the national business plan competition for low-income high school students, an annual contest that challenges students around the country to develop plans for their own businesses.
Then, through the powers of Facebook, Singh received an offer the following winter to work in Finland from a woman she had met while interning at a boutique PR firm her senior year at Dartmouth. An offer she “couldn’t refuse”, in January 2008 Singh left NFTE to work at the American Chamber of Commerce in Helsinki, Finland.
It was there that Singh “really started to figure [herself] out.”
“It was the first time I lived by myself and the first time I’d been really, really bored,” Singh said. “It allowed me to unwind.”
Singh worked for the American Chamber of Commerce in the communications and events department and edited the chamber’s newsletter as one of the organization’s only fluent English speakers.
Upon returning to the United States, Singh earned a master’s degree in higher education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which she plans to put to use working for the Diversity Affairs Office at a university or as a class dean.
“When I graduated, I was undecided with the desire to try a new city and meet new people. Right now I am trying my third new city and continue to meet people as I try to figure out my next step. So the reality isn't too far off from what I had imagined,” she said.
Vaibhav Rajan
Vai Rajan left Dartmouth for the globe-trotting life as an investment banker, moving from New York to Switzerland to Singapore before deciding to settle in London.
Since summer 2005, Rajan has been working in the private equity sector of HSBC, which invests in companies that are not listed on any exchange. The project that has piqued his interest most is the work he has done with businesses in the clean technologies and renewable resources sectors.
“We meet a lot of managers who are experts. We invest in the latest ideas, inventions and technologies, most of which would probably merge with bigger companies or lose out and die…but we only need one to save the world,” Rajan said.
Through working for HSBC, Rajan noted that he has been impressed by the corporate world’s efforts to combat climate change, especially among unexpected players “pumping money into the field.”
“Oil companies and Middle Eastern billionaires and governments are extremely eager to diversify out of oil and so we see the most enormously ambitious projects in solar, wind, water and energy efficiency being funded and proposed by the most oil-rich nations of the world,” Rajan said.
While Rajan is gaining a unique insider’s view of the economic underpinnings of climate change and renewable resources, he does not plan to remain in the field long term, hoping to one day return to science.
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Merrick Johnston wrote: This was a great article, well written Marta. I can relate with Sabrina about living alone. I think it is something we should all do at some point in our life. Look forward to reading more articles like this
Jun 17, 2009 4:18 pm |
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