Last week’s Rose Cafe featured Laura Rodriguez de Simons, who works at the advocacy center here in Ithaca. I didn’t know that we had an advocacy center prior to this talk, so it was really nice to hear about all of its wonderful, free services (24-hour hotline, shelter, legal advocacy, crisis intervention, and more). Laura also talked about her interesting path to her current career in social advocacy. She studied economics as an undergrad and later got her MBA. She then worked at a real estate firm in New York City for one or two years before realizing that she wasn’t following her passion.

Laura told us that we should strive to pursue careers that we are truly passionate about, not careers that are simply “safe” and traditional. She also advised us to work/intern for free in order to get experience in the nonprofit sector. Personally, I didn’t necessarily agree with that piece of advice; most of the time, it’s simply not feasible for students to devote time and energy into a job without financial support. Nevertheless, if people can afford to do so, they should certainly go for it – the experience would be really valuable.