July 7th, 2017
Although the I had my plans figured out and flights booked months ago, I hadn’t truly begun to emotionally process my upcoming fellowship until right now. “Right now” being 20 minutes before I board my flight to Bangalore, India. As expected, I’m positively thrilled but also nervous for the seven weeks I am about to spend in India without any of my close friends, parents or sister.
The What
For six weeks, I will be working with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Bangalore which strives to provide women and children with outreach programs and resources to improve their welfare. More specifically, I will be participating and helping organize their health care and nutrition programs for the 4 neighboring slums in the city. I’ll be staying with my maternal grandparents whose house is a five-minute walk from the main YWCA facility.
The Why
As a rising Junior majoring in neuroscience and on a pre-med track, I have a short time before I start studying for the MCAT and looking over med school applications. But even before that, I need to make sure I’m 100% positive about taking those steps onto that long and laborious path to becoming a doctor. Since my initial interest in the field of medicine during my Junior year of high school, I have eliminated many other career options and found many reasons to pursue a career in medicine. Through logic and careful consideration, practicing medicine and using a medical degree is what I believe will lead me to my vocation. However, what I haven’t experienced though is that spark––the aha moment when my soul intuitively believes my vocation will be found through becoming a doctor. The classic the heart and the head must agree dilemma. Finding that aha moment is incredibly important to me because it is a LONG process before anyone becomes an independent practicing doctor. When med school kicks my butt or when residency leaves me so tired I feel it in my bones, that spark is what I imagine will keep me going past the self-doubt and fatigue.
Unfortunately, as badly as I want to experience that aha moment, I understand it’s not a moment to be chased after. It happens when you least expect it but I can’t simply sit around waiting so I guess this opportunity is me taking matters into my own hands. After I establish myself as a doctor, I hope to travel abroad and improve access to health care and education to less developed areas. This fellowship allows me to sample a taste of that lifestyle even before I apply to med school. So even that aha moment doesn’t come to me while I’m in India, I’m able to find some insight to what I could be doing as a doctor in the future. In addition, I anticipate that my time with the YWCA will help to understand cultures outside the US and how their needs differ from communities I have previously seen.
The How
Going into my sophomore year, I knew I wanted to seize more opportunities that resonated with my interests and passions. I loved all my commitments on campus: dancing salsa, being a board member of our South Asian club, working in res-life, tutoring peers in calculus, etc. However, I wanted something that went beyond the SCU community and really resonated with my interests in medicine and public health. I had a sense of what I wanted but no idea how to obtain it; in every conversation, I was constantly looking to see what others were involved with and how they came across it.
But it wasn’t until close to the end of 2016 when I came across the Jean Donovan Fellowship (JDF) and realized it would be my first opportunity to do an international internship that I could design myself.
I first began exploring the idea of applying for the Jean Donovan last November when I came across a blog written by a friend, Sri Ramesh, about her time in Pune, India. With the support of the JDF, Sri worked with the Equal Community Foundation, a non-profit pursuing gender equality in India. Sri’s blog was captivating and genuine and I read every post in one sitting.
My heart was beating fast because I knew this was the opportunity I had been looking for. It had the potential to provide me with a fulfilling internship. I yearned to do something with my time that made me so happy my heart ached.
So that same day, I reached out to Sri via Facebook messenger and told her how much I had enjoyed reading her blog. Over the following months, I continued to discuss the JDF with Sri and she helped me tremendously to start the ground work for the application. I had expressed my interest in doing the nonprofit work in India since I hadn’t seen my family there in almost 7 years. Sri gave me a few contacts that she had and I began emailing and networking.
A few months later, after getting one fruitless response after another, I had almost given up on the idea of applying for the JDF. School was getting tougher and there were other things happening in my personal life that were taking my attention away from applying for the JDF.
However, a phone call from my mother in January changed everything. When she had been talking to my grandmother about my interest to do nonprofit work in India, my grandmother was thrilled. She was on the board of the Young Women’s Christian Association and the YWCA was always looking for more volunteers. Thus began the process of long email threads and hour long phone calls to figure out all the details.
This process was nowhere near smooth. There were the time difference, language barriers, and countless miscommunications. But with the help of my parents, grandma, and support of my friends, I got all the information I needed for the application and for my internship at the YWCA to be possible. Of course, I still needed to hear back from the JDF but I didn’
Of course, I still needed to hear back from the JDF after submitting the application I had spent hours working on. It was a very long wait and each moment reminded me of how bad I wanted this opportunity to travel to India and intern with the YWCA. Even if I wasn’t picked for the JDF, I promised myself I would find a way to still make it happen. I didn’t have to follow through on that promise though because I later would find out I had been offered the chance to be a Jean Donovan Fellow. Ecstatic doesn’t even begin to describe how thrilled I was to get that email.
And that is how I now find myself about to board my plane from SFO to Bangalore, India. I’m excited, nervous and very curious to see what becomes of my time with the YWCA and living with my grandma for the next seven weeks.
-Talia Menezes
Jean Donovan Summer Fellowship 