I graduated with a Masters Degree in Human Rights and Multiculturalism in June of 2024. And from that moment forward my mind has been adrift and hitting rocky shores of prospective job markets and finding no sandy beaches.
Lessons from a “Gifted” Child
When I was growing up, I had a talent for numbers, science, and finding solutions. I was often praised for being smart and pushed ahead in school, where I ran into the arms of anyone who validated my intelligence. It was only thanks to a physics teacher who didn’t sing my praises that I began to have a rift with the sciences – I actually had no desire to be in that field, I just enjoyed being told I was smart.
I realized my heart was drawn to music and social studies. I had a socials teacher who was so passionate and taught about the parts of history and politics that often went overlooked and suddenly I wanted to write and research and know more about the world, a place I cared about deeply. Her classes changed the trajectory of my life.
I have a distinct memory being in Grade 11 Social Studies and sitting with my friend. As we read chapters from our textbook detailing global inequality, gaps in literacy, economic differences, women’s rights, among other aspects, she turned to me and asked, “what can we even do about issues like this?”.
It was a flashpoint in my life, one where I felt a shift, that in my brain that was seriously considering applying to conservatories and music schools decided definitively to pursue education in the social sciences and work towards creating a better world.
I won’t deny the certain white saviour narratives that certainly influenced this decision. I was, after all, one of the first kids to attend Me to We and fall face first into the world of Free the Children. Luckily, my dad, well-versed in economics and politics, talked me down from supporting such organizations and I grew wary of most global charities. But a new organization was about to put its hooks in me.
The United Nations.
It’s funny to look back on this timeline and see how I decided that the UN was the most worthy organization of my ambitions. I managed to see the ills of global NGOs but the UN managed to sit above. My social studies teacher made sure to teach us of the UN’s failures. Particularly Palestine, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans. And yet something within me saw the good in international diplomacy and I worked towards my new goal.
Stumbling into Adulthood
When I was 18 I started my Bachelors Degree in International Relations at the University of Calgary. Well, sort of. Because I actually started in a combined program with a Bachelors in Commerce. My year in business school ended swiftly and abruptly, after an ethics session where our professor asked whether Canada should take a deal to manufacture weapons for Saudi Arabia. The ensuing discussion left me determined to get into any line of work that would stop the people in that room from ever getting into positions of power.
International Relations education was great. Despite having a similar theoretical background to Political Science, International Relations draws much more women. I won’t get into that here, but needless to say I enjoyed my classes and conversations with classmates and professors. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost everyone in the program aspired to some level of work with the UN or at least other forms of global diplomacy. Some of us leaned more to the ‘development’ end of the spectrum and some much more traditional, policy and diplomacy. Events by various student groups boasting “Careers at the UN” were the most widely attended, and many of us watched as other students managed to secure internships at the UN and other renowned organizations.
I had begun to split from the part of me wanting to go to the UN at the end of my first year and through my second year. Our Amnesty International Chapter hosted a conference and we had a wonderful social worker close out the event. Though her name is now lost to me, I will never forget this woman and what she shared in that room. She talked very casually about what it means to help people and that while she respected people who go abroad to help others, she was personally called to help people in her own community. Beyond that she emblazoned a message in my mind “sometimes the best thing you can do is take out the trash”. She told a story about how she was a young social worker coming to a new care home and asked what she could do to help. In her mind she wanted to use her expertise and education to create new programs and start meeting with clients but the other workers told her to take out the trash. She explained the situation showed how our egos can get in the way, especially with young and educated workers. The best thing you can do is what someone needs, and sometimes, it means taking out the trash even when you have letters after your name.
The wheels in my brain began to turn after this lesson. Following her presentation, she answered questions from the audience. Someone asked her about how to help with the newly arrived Syrian refugees if you don’t speak Arabic or have other more ‘useful’ skills (such as legal help, accounting, etc.). The presenter spoke very excitedly about an organization that had been working in a neighbourhood for a few years that might be a place to check out. The organization was called Soccer Without Boundaries (they have since expanded and are still doing amazing work as Umoja Community Mosaic in Calgary). As a former soccer player and someone who wanted to help, I reached out and began volunteering with them regularly. I watched kids grow up, learn English, make friends, play soccer, start university, and more. I didn’t live in the neighbourhood but I felt like I became a part of it.
After these experiences I soon realized that helping people and making a difference did not have to look flashy. Sometimes it just looked like hanging out in a park for 2 hours every Saturday and talking to someone who needed someone to talk to. Or taking out the trash.
I continued my education and became more engaged in learning for learning’s sake, rather than out of a necessity to pursue a big career. I also began taking courses in Indigenous Studies, after a much needed reality check in an International Relations class where I realized my Canadian history and politics knowledge was … lacking. I ended up completing a minor in International Indigenous Studies which was so rewarding. I finished my studies into a global pandemic where I lost my part time student job due to remote work requirements. Luckily, I faced only a few months of unemployment before starting a job with a local NGO, fully remote.
I had two pretty good years at the NGO. I still remember my colleagues fondly and the youth that I worked with, many of whom have gone on to do amazing things. It was a unique situation to work fully remote and full time while navigating what ‘work life’ really looks like, all in the background of the Covid-19 pandemic. Towards the end of my time at the NGO, I felt I had more to do. I wanted to do more to help the youth I worked with, many of whom had the same issues stemming from the same lack of systemic support. I realized that if I wanted to do more in the non-profit sector I would have to climb my way up the ladder or jump around, ideally with a master’s degree. After some time away from the classroom, I had also begun to consider a career in academia where I could teach. So, with the stress of lockdown and strong confidence in my next move, I packed up my things and moved to Norway to pursue my Master’s Degree.
To Master’s & Beyond
I have often rationalized any career move I make as being centered on the idea of helping people. To me, the HOW of that has become less important, so long as I am helping people. So for me, the idea of going into academia does fit that parameter because research helps and so does teaching. While this is a simplistic vision of academia, you cannot blame me for my interpretation of such a black box industry.
Anyway, so there I was, newly arrived in a new country and starting my Masters Degree. As someone who worked and volunteered a lot during my Bachelor’s, I was very determined to embrace my graduate education as much as I could and really make an effort to do my readings and start my assignments early. To which I was successful! I had fine grades in my undergraduate but here I began to get straight As. I enjoyed the literature we were assigned and the essays I wrote all pushed me in new ways. It was the first time that I felt like I really fit somewhere.
Moving to a new country meant building up a community from scratch, which luckily was fairly easy when you’re also a student. Coming from a lockdown situation where my best friend and long-time roommate moved across the country and I had few other close friends, coming to Norway meant that I could have a fresh start and build relationships how I had wanted to in undergrad but crippling mental health issues had prevented me. My days and nights were full of group meals, studying and working in the library together, and watching trashy reality TV while eating frozen pizza. Occasionally we added beer, but if you’ve seen liquor prices in Norway then you would understand the ‘occasionally’.
We helped each other through a lot. Within days and weeks we all went from strangers to close friends. There were debates and fights, separations and break ups, petty dramas, and basically anything else you would expect from these types of groups. But as mostly international students, we had each other’s backs.
This was another group filled with UN ambitions. Except, several people had already worked for the UN. But something was also different. There was a lack of unbridled optimism that I saw in undergrad, likely because many classmates came from places where they had witnessed first-hand the failures of international organizations. Everyone was much more aware of systemic shortcomings, but also the fact that many had responsibilities beyond themselves, such as partners and kids. The UN still had a reverent tone but many people were actively looking beyond.
I don’t have such great insights on this time because I’ve only just left it. But what I can say that changed me the most here is the idea of community. When someone was sick, we made care packages and shared our notes with them. And when there was a political crisis in someone’s home country we wrote letters and staged protests. When someone stumbled, we caught them. When we missed home, we came together.
Where my Bachelors degree is most remembered in my mind as when Trudeau and Trump came to office, my Masters degree will be remembered by the Women Life Freedom movement and protests in Iran and the Palestinian genocide. It is a feeling of great powerlessness to study international law and human rights while witnessing their failure on a global screen. I will never lose my attachment to hope and optimism, because I don’t think nihilism and pessimism serve anyone other than those in power. If we do not believe things can change, they won’t. But this was the closest to a crisis in faith I’ve ever had.
I graduated with a Masters Degree in Human Rights and Multiculturalism in June of 2024. And as I looked around, I felt hopeless and desireless. I am no stranger to mental illness, but the numbness I have felt since graduating is different. I am looking out into a world where the ideals that I have studied are not respected nor desired. I want to help people and hopefully leave the world a better place, but how can I make it a better place here while blood is being spilt there?
Every job rejection I receive bounces off. I don’t doubt my abilities, I know myself to be a competent person – I can make an excel sheet that could bring you to tears. But I am increasingly drained by the prospect of working in certain industries. One of the factors leading to me leaving my NGO job was feeling like I was a bandaid. And while I did great work and impacted people as a bandaid, I couldn’t help but notice that maybe we didn’t need the blade?
To receive an education which reveals the complexity of global inequality is immobilizing. I can tell you everything I know and everything I’ve read on the history of Palestine and the creation of Israel, but I still watch helplessly. I share petitions and show up at protests, but I can still only witness.
This past year, I have pursued PhD opportunities in Norway and in Canada, aspiring to some sort of position where someone can hear me. Where I can change someone’s life like my teachers did and like that social worker did. Maybe a lecture or something I write will change someone’s trajectory and while I’ll have no claim to the good they did, at least I am still a butterfly beating its wings.
Because helplessness does not exist. Nothing is ever helpless and no person is helpless.
You will not be able to save the world. You might only be saving yourself. But you can still help others. You can still make your corner of the world a place of light and care. Because the world needs it. Your friends need it. Your neighbours need it. Your coworkers need it. You need it.
Four Letter Words
Sometimes you have to take out the trash. But sometimes you need to bake cake.
Still I struggle with owning the idea of “helping others” because I don’t want to sound too saviour-y. But at this point, if I’m so scared of a hypothetical critique from an imaginary person, then I’m weak. I’m here to help people and leave the world better off. But I’m not going to be able to cure cancer or create lasting global peace. In fact, I’ll probably only be able to be a good friend, neighbour, mentor, teacher, parent maybe, whatever. But why “only”? That is so many things to get to do.
Helping people is not about grand gestures. I mean if you’re rich or have a lot of influence, by all means be grand. But for the rest of us, I think we just need to bake some cake.
Since I have graduated from my Masters degree I have been working as a bartender. And while many people raise an eyebrow when I say this, it truly has been a great job. I love getting to talk to people, I love making drinks, I love listening to music, and I love cleaning. This won’t be my forever job but it has taught me a lot.
Jobs are great for making money. Maybe this is obvious to most people, but when you have aspired to industries that notoriously pay little and require lots of unpaid labour, it’s an important thing to remember. Jobs also provide you (hopefully) with some sort of community. You don’t have to be besties with your coworkers, but it sure doesn’t hurt to be friends with people you see regularly.
The Christmas before last, I decided to make cookies for all of my coworkers. I wrote little notes and gave everyone a tiny bottle of Fireball (we work in a bar and it’s pretty much the only Canadian liquor you can find here). I remember being so surprised seeing people with tears in their eyes and telling me it was the nicest gift they had received. From then on I would occasionally bring cakes in for everyone to enjoy. It always warmed my heart to see how something that would take less than 2 hours for me to make could bring such joy to people on a random Saturday. I started to get more ambitious and make cakes for everyone’s birthdays. Even those who don’t like to celebrate their birthday enjoy getting something special.
Sometimes you need to bake cake! Sometimes what you need to do is small and takes 5 ingredients. Life is not about grand gestures, but small acts of love and care to make people feel like they matter. Baking cake and taking care of the people in my life has been my lifeline lately. When the world seems too big, make it small. Your neighbour needs your help too.
Wrapping It Up With A Bow
It is a horrible time to have a degree in Human Rights. I feel so disillusioned with the world right now and any sort of career attached to human rights, but I keep coming back to my two mottos: take out the trash and bake cake. When we think our life is going to go one way and then we are jerked into another path it can feel uncomfortable and disorienting. Whether it’s a socio-political crisis, a loss in the family, or a change of heart, leaving the idealized life you created in your mind is difficult. But nothing is helpless. You can pursue anything you want and you can still make a difference. You might not be at the Human Rights Council, but all around you are people who need you. And who knows, changing your perspective might bring about opportunities you never considered.
Do good wherever you go, from the boardroom to the classroom to the bar to the library. Bake some cake and take out the trash. No one can save the world but all of us can.
