I was drawn to Trent for its reputation as a unique, small university with a strong focus on liberal arts education. The International Development Studies program gave me with the opportunity to satisfy my passion for world events while deepening my understanding of the global forces that shape our world. The interdisciplinary approach – with many course offerings cross-listed with other departments such as anthropology, politics, economics, and history – encourages students to consider an issue from multiple viewpoints. It also gave me more flexibility to build a program of study to suit my interests and the skills I wanted to gain.
I really enjoyed the small class sizes and dedicated teaching staff which lead to great opportunities for discussion and debate. The professors care about the issues they are teaching and that can make all the difference. It was also interesting to study alongside so many international students who brought their own experiences into our academic study of international development.
While the classroom education was great, a clear highlight of my time at Trent was my year abroad with the Trent-in-Ecuador program. It is hard to overstate the value of living and studying in another country. From getting the chance to take the theory out of the classroom and see how it holds up against real-world examples, to learning a new language and exploring a wild variety of new foods and crazy buses.
I will be ever grateful to my host family for their patience as I quietly smiled and nodded my way through the first weeks of family meals. But there is no better way to learn a language than full immersion, and by the end of the school year, family lunches would drag on with conversations of Ecuadorian politics or the latest soap opera plot twist.
We were lucky to take classes, in our little Sangolqui schoolhouse, with some of the top academics in Ecuadorian Politics and Economics. In fact, two of our professors went on to advise Rafael Correa who was elected President during our time in Ecuador. I found it so easy to engage with the subject matter when you are living amidst the society produced by the historical economic and political processes you are studying.
The experience really came to life when our group of Canadian students split up and we each set off on our own adventure to live and work amidst a development organization. I was drawn to a very active peasant union called UPOCAM which ran a variety of rural development projects in the coastal province of Manabi. With three offices UPOCAM ran a health clinic, adult literacy classes, highschool programs, agricultural assistance and a rural radio station. I was embedded in a Belgian-funded coffee project which aimed to increase yields and improve collective marketing throughout the province.
Travelling to remote farm clinics and helping develop training modules was very interesting, but the most fascinating learning opportunity came with the decision of the Belgian development agencies to terminate their contract with UPOCAM over allegations of misuse of equipment for political campaigning. This conflict helped to clarify for me the tension between foreign funding agencies that seek apolitical technical solutions, and local organizations that view entrenched problems as requiring political solutions. In the end, my time working with the politically active peasant union deepened my conviction that economic development cannot be divorced from political processes.
It was in part this realization that lead me to the conclusion that my interest in social justice and global economic inequality might best find their expression in the realm of Canadian politics. Working alongside the activists of UPOCAM emphasized for me the importance of political agency and convinced me to apply myself in Canada where I had the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The quality of my academic training and the uniqueness of my experience in Ecuador helped me land a spot in the Parliamentary Internship Programme. As one of ten Parliamentary Interns, I worked with Members of Parliament from both the Opposition and Government and travelled to legislatures throughout Canada and abroad during the year-long work-study program.
Following my internship, I was hired by MP Nathan Cullen as a Legislative Assistant charged with research and policy analysis to support his work in Parliament as the NDP Critic for Natural Resources.
Three years later, I am now working as a policy advisor within the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition and have the privilege of helping to shape the debate on issues that are important domestically and internationally. While I am not working in the field of International Development, it is clear to me that my course of study helped lead me to my current work.
My academic training through International Development Studies at Trent left me well-equipped to consider conflicting sources and diverse viewpoints in order to understand and unpack contentious political issues. I've drawn on my experiences in Ecuador to better understand the corporate social responsibility challenges of Canadian mining companies operating abroad. And I have been often grateful for the economic literacy I gained in poring through spreadsheets of country finances in IDST 425 'Money & Finance' and other courses.
The same interests that draw me to my current work in Parliament are what drew me to IDS at Trent: a desire to better understand and influence the forces that produce economic inequality in order to build a more just society both at home and abroad.