Senior to Watch: Shannon Dulaney
Ioana Patringenaru | March 24, 2008
Shannon Dulaney
Major:
Political science with an emphasis on foreign relations
College: Thurgood Marshall
Eight years ago, when she was just 13, Shannon Dulaney took a trip with her church’s youth group to Guatemala. They did construction work at a missionary institution, visited orphanages and explored local markets.
This week, Dulaney is back in Guatemala again, this time with Alternative Spring Breaks, a program, which allows students to take one-week service trips to foreign countries at the end of the spring quarter. She is helping build an irrigation system for a school serving developmentally delayed adults and children.
These two trips nicely bookend Dulaney’s life so far, which has been dedicated to activism, service and traveling abroad. In the past four years, she has served as a site leader for Alternative Spring Breaks, a co-founder of the Center for Social Progress at UCSD and the chair of the campus’ chapter of the California Public Interest Research Group.
“She is just passionate about making a difference,” said Jayne Smith, UCSD’s Student Organizations Advisor and Community Service Coordinator. “Her enthusiasm is contagious.”
Smith first met Dulaney in December, when the staff member became the advisor for Alternative Spring Breaks. The two then worked together to put on a benefit dinner for the program. Dulaney created and organized lengthy lists for guests, payments, donations and staffing needs. She even asked the band that was providing entertainment for the dinner to come three hours early to do sound checks.
“She is probably the most organized, committed, reliable student leader I’ve worked with,” Smith said of Dulaney.
But Dulaney said she has actually worked hard in the past two years to shed her identity as a leader of student organizations. She credits a study-abroad stint in Ireland for helping her become independent and prepare for life after graduation. “I forced myself not to get involved and rediscover my values and who I was,” she said.
Studying in Ireland
Studying abroad had been a childhood dream of Dulaney. It came true during her junior year, when she studied at Trinity College in Dublin for nine months. She relished the city’s small-town feel, which allowed her to be part of a close-knit community, she said. She studied political science. She lived on the campus, which was built in the late 1500s. “It felt like walking around in a different time,” she said.
Slowly, she also rediscovered and redefined herself, she said. During her sophomore year, she had identified too closely with the organizations she worked for, she said. By contrast, living in Dublin provided her with a great sense of independence, she said. “As a woman, being able to live on your own without knowing anybody at first is really empowering,” she said.
Plans for the future
After living in Ireland, Dulaney also decided to re-evaluate her plans for life after graduation. “Activism and marching in the streets is great and fun,” she said. “But I won’t have the energy for that in 10 years.” She originally planned to go to law school. But that has become a pricy option. Also she doesn’t feel emotionally ready for it, she said. So she is now applying to become an English-language teacher in Japan for a year. In the future, she plans to work abroad for a non-governmental organization or the United Nations, she said.
“I just want to travel for the rest of my life,” she confided.
She believes Japan will be a good place to figure out how to handle some of the challenges that come with working in a foreign country. “I wanted to stretch out my comfort zone,” she said.
Life at UCSD
Dulaney said she feels UCSD prepared her well for a life as an activist and NGO worker. The organizations she joined on campus empowered her, she said, and she met many students who care deeply about many causes. Dulaney cites a trip she organized for other UCSD students to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as one of the experiences that marked her the most as a student here. “It was huge for me,” she said. “It got me out of the La Jolla bubble.”
When Dulaney graduated from high school, her first choice was to go to UC Berkeley, where her parents went, she said. Instead, she enrolled in community college. But she soon realized she wanted to experience life at a four-year university. She said she is now glad she eventually decided to come to San Diego. She would never have gotten the opportunity to be a student leader as a freshman or sophomore at Cal or UCLA, she pointed out.
“I love this campus,” she said of UCSD.
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