I imagine the second semester of senior year college is a bittersweet time for most college students; it’s a period of transition and movement, the end of personal eras and the start of new chapters. For me, it’s a time of reflection, a moment to look back at everything from the friendships I’ve made to the classes I took. Upon graduating, I anticipate being bombarded with the question, “What did you do in college?” for years and years to come. But I think asking someone what he or she “did” in college is too vague and inane a question: there’s simply too much stuff packed between four years to give an adequate answer. Instead, I’ll ask my peers this: “What did you choose to invest in?” I think the question cuts to the heart of the matter, and extracts all the important bits from the enormous quantity of stuff that I “did”. I can adequately respond to that question in a sentence: I invested my academic time studying how people and businesses communicate, my personal time becoming both a proficient climber and musician, and my professional time working with sustainability. What’s really cool is that I saw my surroundings reflect that investment, too. Over the course of the last four years, I’ve seen a tremendously change in how sustainability is perceived at Babson College.
Four years ago, sustainability wasn’t the cool kid on the block. Thinking sustainably was in development in 2009, which I would attribute in part as a reaction to the financial crisis the year before that, where the world realized that our socioeconomic structures were not in fact infallible, but in desperate need of change. Babson, being the progressive business school that it is, created paid positions dedicated to developing green solutions. If that sounds vague, it’s because it was. The Eco Rep program in its infancy was still determining how it should actually structure itself; at the time, we spent weekly meetings brainstorming creative ideas but rarely acting on them. This would radically change over the years as Babson increasingly invested more of its resources. The Eco Rep program underwent massive restructures, and students who were hired became dynamic and responsible change agents known for acting- not sitting around. Come 2013, it’s no longer “progressive” to discuss sustainability in business, it’s expected. What can I say? Babson’s hip. We do things before everyone else catches on. Innovation is in our blood.
While being an Eco Rep for four consecutive years has been tremendously satisfying in seeing the progress and change in mindset around me, it’s also been enriching. In a way, by investing my time in sustainability, it invested in me. I can honestly say that I was a much more timid person as a freshmen and while I like to think I was sharp, I didn’t approach problem solving comprehensively. Working on the massive problems one tends to encounter working in the field of sustainability taught me to step back before diving headlong- no one is going to solve the intricacies of waste management and recycling overnight. Over the years I learned of “systems-thinking,” or how to see how everything is connected and practice this daily. I became absolutely comfortable with working efficiently with groups and presenting to audiences of hundreds of people. And finally, I honed my technical skills as a marketer, developing posters, videos, and branding material to develop a portfolio of my work as I transition into a professional career.
How many other jobs on a college campus give you that opportunity?
I’d venture to say none other than the Eco Reps.
-Kiran Surdhar
Four years ago, sustainability wasn’t the cool kid on the block. Thinking sustainably was in development in 2009, which I would attribute in part as a reaction to the financial crisis the year before that, where the world realized that our socioeconomic structures were not in fact infallible, but in desperate need of change. Babson, being the progressive business school that it is, created paid positions dedicated to developing green solutions. If that sounds vague, it’s because it was. The Eco Rep program in its infancy was still determining how it should actually structure itself; at the time, we spent weekly meetings brainstorming creative ideas but rarely acting on them. This would radically change over the years as Babson increasingly invested more of its resources. The Eco Rep program underwent massive restructures, and students who were hired became dynamic and responsible change agents known for acting- not sitting around. Come 2013, it’s no longer “progressive” to discuss sustainability in business, it’s expected. What can I say? Babson’s hip. We do things before everyone else catches on. Innovation is in our blood.
While being an Eco Rep for four consecutive years has been tremendously satisfying in seeing the progress and change in mindset around me, it’s also been enriching. In a way, by investing my time in sustainability, it invested in me. I can honestly say that I was a much more timid person as a freshmen and while I like to think I was sharp, I didn’t approach problem solving comprehensively. Working on the massive problems one tends to encounter working in the field of sustainability taught me to step back before diving headlong- no one is going to solve the intricacies of waste management and recycling overnight. Over the years I learned of “systems-thinking,” or how to see how everything is connected and practice this daily. I became absolutely comfortable with working efficiently with groups and presenting to audiences of hundreds of people. And finally, I honed my technical skills as a marketer, developing posters, videos, and branding material to develop a portfolio of my work as I transition into a professional career.
How many other jobs on a college campus give you that opportunity?
I’d venture to say none other than the Eco Reps.
-Kiran Surdhar
