I am a fourth year undergraduate student pursuing a dual degree in Business Administration at Ivey and Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences at Western. I am interested in attending medical school after graduating or working in a position that will combine my health care and business interests. I thoroughly enjoy working with other people, especially children and youth, and I have gained experience through volunteering with Learning it Together and the Boys & Girls Club, and working as a swim instructor. In addition, I have a passion for traveling and learning about new cultures and lifestyles.
Additional Information
What is your personal definition of sustainability?
My personal definition of sustainability is caring about the future and being concerned with many different areas such as politics, economics, society, and the environment. To be sustainable means to have a long-term view about how the world is functioning and to have a proactive view at the same time about the actions that we take every day. Sustainability means to support something and to be aware that everything you do will have a lasting effect and greater impact than what you perceive it to have at that current moment in time. In order for our future generations to behave in the same manner that we do, we must consciously look after what we have so that it can be maintained moving forward.
What role do you see sustainability playing in your professional career?
In my professional career, I see sustainability playing an important role with regard to health care. I think I will always be working toward ensuring and promoting healthy lifestyles and the general well being of people because of my medical background and interest in the health care sector. I think that sustainability is currently becoming a bigger phenomenon and the concept is being talked about more nowadays. As a result, it will be easy for me to develop, promote, and join sustainability initiatives.
In general, the health care sector consumes energy at a rate that is not considered to be sustainable and because of this many hospitals have begun implementing initiatives to reduce their overall consumption. I want to choose my workplace location based on whether or not they are committed to having sustainability as one of their focuses, for example, through developing green buildings, reducing overall waste levels, offering food that was grown and sourced sustainably, and determining ways to reduce their overall environmental footprint through the purchase of greener equipment.
Aside from my workplace, I plan on continuing to set aside some of my time for volunteer activities that are bettering people in society today, but at the same time, our future society.
What sustainable projects have you been engaged in?
Last summer I participated in the International Business Environment Studies: Service Learning in Africa course, which can be considered a sustainability project whereby we offered the case-based method of learning to the students that we engaged with. We taught 12 different business cases written by past Ivey students about problems facing business managers across Africa, which enabled our students to learn and apply business fundamentals to scenarios that were familiar to them. We promoted learning opportunities by having our students think about their future careers and develop a succinct business plan for an idea that they wanted to pursue.
I previously was a first year residence representative for Western’s Free the Children club. The money that we raised throughout the year went toward building a school in Nicaragua, leading to greater access to education for children. We collected canned food items in the London community and on Western’s campus for the Halloween for Hunger initiative, which were then donated to a local food bank to assist with providing nutritious meals for all.
During my time at Boys & Girls Club and Learning it Together, I have worked with underprivileged children and youth, and aimed to encourage healthy lifestyles and quality education.
