Universities often confine their knowledge within classroom walls, keeping it detached from the real world that awaits students. So, after many semesters of sitting, listening and testing, graduates often don’t have a clue about what is possible — or how all that knowledge they’ve acquired will help them fulfill their dreams and aspirations. This educational shortcoming is especially significant for under-represented minority and first-generation students, individuals who desire to put their knowledge to work by making connections between academe and society.
Some argue that internships and career counseling bridge the gap, but these often come too late in the curriculum and are often viewed as being non-academic and secondary.
Why should education be limited to textbooks and lectures? Why must experiential learning and career contemplation be viewed as less intellectual than academic knowledge?
Fortunately, I had a unique opportunity to experience something different. Through the University of Texas at Austin’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship internship, I was given the rare chance to own my education. I discovered how to leverage knowledge for social good — in essence, I learned how to be a “citizen-scholar.” I share my experience in the hope that changes will eventually be made in undergraduate education, resulting in more opportunities like mine.
When I was four years old, my family left our home country of Perú to escape the chaos caused by the Shining Path Maoist guerrillas. Although it was a painful sacrifice, my parents wanted their three daughters to succeed, so they brought us to this “land of opportunity.”
I studied hard in school, believing this would ultimately secure a life of fulfillment. But at the end of high school, I grew nervous about finding a career and began exploring engineering and medicine via structured outreach programs at Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Baylor University and my magnet school’s medical rotations classes. But I remained unconvinced and, while at Duke University, I retreated into a state of despair, worrying I would never find my vocation. I probably would have ultimately entered the medical profession like my sisters had I not confronted the greatest challenge of my life: becoming a mother.
I began exploring the possibility of a career in law and ended up transferring to the University of Texas. There, I stumbled upon the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Pre-Graduate School Internship, part of UT’s nationally acclaimed intercollegial IE Consortium. A largely self-directed internship, this class was unlike any other I had experienced. Rather than being delivered in the typical didactic fashion, where knowledge is spoon-fed to students, the internship encouraged me to think like an intellectual entrepreneur — to study myself, my knowledge and the career I envisioned.
