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In recent months I’ve been thinking a lot more about what I want to do with my life – the time I have on this planet, the tools and skills that God has given me, the stores of support that I have from my family, friends and mentors. I believe that it’s a direct result of my whole graduate school application process and I’ll begin with an EF Schumacher quote that I used in my foundational statement of purpose ("foundational" relating to the fact that this version was the barebones structure that I used for all of my applications):


“What sort of education is this if it prevents us from thinking of things to be done immediately?...We must recover the sense that it is the most natural thing for every person born into this world to use his hands in a productive way and that it is not beyond the wit of man to make this possible.”


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Considering that, in monetary terms, our world has being growing ever richer with our relentless pursuit of GDP growth, why aren’t we better off? Buildings are more impressive, vehicles move faster, and the stuff we buy is cooler and flashier. General death rates have declined significantly: Bill Gates points out in his 2009 Annual Letter that “over the past 50 years childhood deaths have dropped dramatically.” Some diseases have been almost completely eradicated and more countries are becoming active on the global stage. But, there are still millions of people who live in poverty.

This fact continues to bug me as I enter the second decade of my life. I’m pretty sure that this bugs you as well. Like many others in my generation, I want to be a part of the solution. I want to change the world. But I need to learn how to make this happen. To help me in my quest to solve the how, I made a list of things that I plan to address when I get to grad school:
  • To gain an education that will enable me to help create a world where basic needs are met and where everyone can pursue the goals that matter to them.
  • To address the problems of poverty and hunger through means such as youth and community empowerment and economic development.
  • To understand how public institutions can interact with other participants in society to address these problems - the "nexus of the public and private spheres"
  • To learn how to work with communities to develop and implement public policies that will engender healthy, equitable, and sustainable living conditions for people in the developing world.
  • To transform my desire to serve into the capacity to create change.

In my next post in this series, I will talk about Idealist's new initiative and what it could do to address our problems today.

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