Directing ambition towards real work.

College students are handed an incomplete list of career options. When I got to Brown, orientation week was full of people who wanted to build ways to fix real problems and turn what they cared about into real work. Three years later most of those conversations have gone quiet, and the same ambitious people drifted, one by one, toward traditional, safe paths.

It made me wonder what narrows everyone down at a school that’s supposed to be one of the most open in the country. I knew the structure for the alternative was important, and I didn’t see that in the impact space, so I built it.

I was pretty sold on the idea of Brown University being a place where people from all backgrounds and distinct interests come together to tackle not just issues, but the deeply rooted systemic flaws from which these issues stem. Instead, I witnessed this very system work as intended, funneling bright and kind-hearted people into careers that are co-opted and moderated by exploitative industries; pay very well but require intelligent students to do menial, non-productive work; or actively entrench systemic inequalities, benefitting the powerful and the expense of the marginalized from all backgrounds.

Amazing students dedicate their most energetic years to finance or consulting in order to pad their resume, because they believe there’s no other option. My vision for Tyche Fellows is to prove that an alternative is possible, to build a pipeline that funnels power into marginalized communities, rather than vice versa.