Narrowing My Focus and Opening New Paths

Receiving the opportunity to attend PLEN’s Women in Global Policy Seminar was a very rewarding and inspiring experience for me. I was able to meet a lot of women who play a variety of roles in the public policy arena. To top it all off, I was able to share this experience with 55 other women from colleges all over the country.

Initially, I wanted to attend PLEN because I had an interest in public policy. I wanted to know the process used in making policies and the different roles people have to play in order for policies to be made. Additionally, I was interested in the public policy seminar because of my background. I am originally from Ghana and moved to the United States a couple years ago. As much as I adore the United States, I also want to do something that would be beneficial to my home country as well which is why I thought public policy was the way to go. However after attending PLEN, I realized that there is a difference between liking the idea of something and actually being interested in something. Unfortunately, I fall in the category of people who liked the idea of public policy and the positive impacts it yields in our community but after attending the seminar, I realized it is not something I see myself doing long term.

Thanks to PLEN, I was able to narrow my focus in my political science major. Although I am not precise on what kind of law I want to focus in, I know for sure that I want to go into the legal field. My interest has been between public policy and law and I am glad that my attending the conference helped me narrow my focus. For that, I am sincerely grateful.

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Angela Aryiku attended the 2018 Women in Global Policy seminar as a students at the College of Saint Benedict. She is planning to graduate in 2021 with a major in political science. She attended this seminar with a partial scholarship sponsored by Jona Van Deun.