I can do many things
I can do more than one thing. And so can you. When I first started my undergraduate career at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2005 I thought I would be a psychologist. On a whim, I applied for a study abroad scholarship that would allow me to take classes at the National University of Singapore with additional travel to Thailand, China, and Malaysia. I was awarded the scholarship and embarked on my first trip outside of the United States with 15 or so other students. It was the summer of 2006. I was 18.
That same summer on July 12, 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon and commenced a non-stop bombing campaign dropping bombs on densely populated urban areas. George W. Bush was the President and Condoleeza Rice was the Secretary of State. Neither called for a ceasefire. The United Nations brokered a ceasefire on August 14, 2006. This wasn't the first humanitarian atrocity and we know many that have since come after. Back then though, we were riding the high wave of being culturally and intellectually stimulated beyond what our ordinary North Carolina upbringing had afforded us. We sat flabbergasted in the airport looking up the television screens wondering how our nation could condone these acts and simultaneously how we could work to make the world a better place.
That fall, I changed my major to international relations and immediately enrolled in Arabic 101. I considered it a moral imperative to understand other cultures that were seemingly misunderstood because, surely, if we understood each other more, we wouldn’t allow for so much suffering. I knew I was destined for an international career without knowing exactly what--maybe international law or international trade. I took courses like The Anthropology of War and Peace, The Vietnam War, and Terrorism and Political Violence. I ended up taking three years of Arabic in addition to picking up a Spanish minor and volunteering in Guatemala City for a summer. In 2009 I had graduated with a degree in Global Studies with a concentration in the Middle East/ North Africa and a minor in Spanish.
Celebrating the Netherlands' first ever "Black Achievement Month," 2017
I was again flying high when the reality of the Great Recession descended upon idealistic recent college graduates delivering a sharp blow of reality. This was the most dramatic employment contraction since the Great Depression. I was rejected from jobs and entry into the top law schools. Plan A and B had failed. I went to live with my dad in Trenton, NJ. It was there that my career as an unpaid/underpaid intern started. First I interned at a state funded policy think tank researching solutions to childhood obesity in urban New Jersey. Then I knocked on doors telling people why they should re-elect Jon Corzine as the Governor of New Jersey. He lost to Chris Christie.
It was at this point I applied for another life-changing opportunity: the Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Graduate Fellowship where graduate school, professional development, and internship opportunities are covered financially provided you work as a Foreign Service Officer with the United States Department of State for three years (it has since changed to five years). My career as an intern continued as I ended up interning with Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) one summer, and at the U.S. Embassy in Doha the next. In the end, I earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University, had studied abroad in Berlin, and served as a Foreign Service Officer in both Mexico and the Netherlands.
When my assignment ended in July 2017, I decided that should also be the end of my federal government career. And here I am. A lot of my peers, former coworkers, and family members asked “What are you going to do now?" When I returned to Durham in 2017 it was a Friday. By Monday I was on my way to take my first pre-licensing real estate class and I haven’t looked back. (Click here to see why I picked real estate as my next move.) Here are some other things I’m interested in that I may or may not do:
- Live abroad again
- Get a PhD
- Write and self-publish an Afro-futurist novel
- Found and direct a non-profit organization centered around community ownership
You get the point. The reality is, I can do a lot of different things and I’m passionate about a lot of different things. I think this mentality is bred by being a resourceful and high-capacity individual, but also by the non-negotiable realities of being a millennial in America. Unlike our parents, we were not necessarily privy to the “study hard, get into college, get a good job, work 30 years, retire” paradigm so we got creative about what we like to do, what we’re passionate about, and how to be innovative around those things. I know not everyone is this way, but for those that are, I’d like to proclaim that your instincts are correct and you can do whatever you want to do.
If you want more on this concept, check out Amanda Seales' "Small Doses" podcast and the "Side Effects of Being a Multihyphenate" episode. Amanda is prolific and hilarious at the same time.
Kuming China, July 2006