Lindsay France and Matthew Fondeur/University Photography

ILR graduate Lauren Wein combined classroom experiences with real-life service, including trips to Nicaragua and an internship in Harlem.

Major: Industrial and labor relations
College: ILR School
Hometown: Cheshire, Conn.

My family has a rich history at Cornell, dating back to my grandfather, who played football here in the 1940s. I grew up hearing his great (and probably wildly embellished) stories about his time here. But after spending a summer during high school as a student in Professor Nicholas Salvatore's Democracy and Its Discontents course, I was sold on Cornell. I loved the beautiful campus, the variety of studies, the diversity and intelligence of the students and the amazing array of student activities. I promised myself I would take full advantage of all that Cornell had to offer.

After participating in a service-learning trip to Nicaragua during the spring break of my freshman year, I served as a teaching assistant and trip leader my sophomore year. I then served as project coordinator of Into the Streets, Cornell's largest day of community service. Finally, I was a co-founder of Active Civically Engaged Scholars, a student group working to further institutionalize service-learning opportunities at Cornell. All of these experiences have been important to me for the enthusiasm and passion for service and social change that I have seen in my fellow Cornell students. There's nothing like seeing 1,200 Cornellians wake up early on a rainy Saturday morning to do service in the community to convince you that our generation wants to, and is going to, make a difference in the world.

The service-learning trip to Nicaragua during my freshman year took me and 17 others to a rural village for a cross-cultural exchange and to build two homes for community members. In the week I lived in that village, my eyes were completely opened to the meaning of extreme poverty.

On our last day, the group visited with students at an elite university, a 20-minute drive away. After a campus tour, I asked some students what they thought about the poverty in their country. "What poverty?" one girl replied. "We don't have any poverty." I thought, "If she doesn't see the poverty that's occurring in her own backyard, what am I missing in my own backyard in Ithaca?"

I realized that poverty does not occur because people are lazy, and it does happen in my own neighborhood. I will spend the rest of my life making sure it doesn't have to be that way.

Classroom experiences combined with real-life service. For example, I traveled to Nicaragua twice during spring breaks after taking a course on that country's history, economics, politics and culture. Additionally, the Cornell Urban Scholars Program connected me with an internship at the Harlem Children's Zone community development agency during the summer before my junior year.

I am a member of the Meinig Family Cornell National Scholars Program, to which I was admitted at the conclusion of my sophomore year. I am especially grateful to this program for enabling me to participate in a summer internship at the Clinton Global Initiative. This internship, along with the connections and friendships I have made on campus, has greatly enhanced my Cornell experience and contributed to my personal development as a leader.

Next year I will be teaching middle school math in a low-income school in New Orleans, and after that I hope to pursue a degree in law or public policy.