Social Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurship Blog Post
EDUPL 2570: Team and Organizational Leadership

When I was younger, my aunt once asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I promptly said, "I want to be a secretary, so I can always help people." Well that response made her very angry and she went on to tell me that I should not settle for a secretary job, I should shoot for something where I could be respected in my job and where I could defy gender stereotypes. I remember being very confused about the entire conversation, after all, I was only six, and my aunt was lucky I did not answer her with aspirations to be Barbie.

Now that I am a junior in college, I have a better understanding of what my aunt was trying to tell me at six years old. It is fine if I want to be a secretary, but I need to remember that there are more than just traditional ways to help people. As I pursue my degree in Sociology, I am quickly learning that we all have our own ideas of what makes us social entrepreneurs. You can be a business owner, an engineer, an artist, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, etc., and if you contribute and bring good to your society, you are a successful social entrepreneur. Since I have always aspired to be a social entrepreneur, I would like to talk about the recent discoveries I have made about how I want to contribute to society.

I have always wanted to take my curiosity with people and society and apply it to my future career, and it was not until I got my job as an Office Assistant in The Ohio Union that I realized that after I graduate with an undergraduate degree, I want to go and receive my masters in Student Affairs and Higher Education. How did this come about? Well, first of all, any one who has spent any time in the offices in the Union will tell you that the professionals who work there are the most amazing humans and social entrepreneurs you will ever lay eyes on. Their dedication to the future generations is so strong, and their drive to not only lead a life of positivity and excellence in their personal lives but to teach others to do the same is infectious in the most beautiful way.

What is my plan? I am planning on finishing my undergraduate degree in Sociology, with a Leadership Studies minor, then heading off to graduate school in Student Affairs and Higher Education. I want to find a position in Student Affairs in a college or university where I can inspire, teach, and learn from the amazing staff and students in that community. I have chosen this as my path for social entrepreneurship because I believe in the power of helping others in the form of guidance, and leading by example. I want to ensure that the world will continue to be populated by people who are passionate about changing the world, saving lives, and putting as many good intentions into the world as possible.

I would like to see myself, one day, as a Vice President of student life who works with her faculty to ensure that students can pursue their respective degrees in the most comfortable, respectable, and excellent manner. I want to make sure our future educators, doctors, lawyers, business professionals, artists and so on can receive a degree in their field of passion and go on to change the world for the better. I want to make sure their roads are built with the strongest of pavements given to them by their higher education experience. I plan to be a social entrepreneur who inspires others to become social entrepreneurs, and I could not be more excited about it.

-Emma
August 2013