An international urban career – at home

When I made the career transition away from stage management and towards something new, the first kind of graduate degree program that caught my eye had to do with International Affairs. You see, I’ve always had an affinity for languages and travel – took French from 7th grade into college, almost 1 year of HS Japanese, some Italian lessons before working in Italy for a month, fortunate enough to have a grandmother take me to Europe and a family support my semester abroad in Paris. I always wanted to work for Cirque du Soleil, where I could use my language skills and interact with an international group of people. I fell in love with Barcelona and still feel I could live there.

My month at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto was one of the most challenging and rewarding of my stage management career – juggling my way along with an American cast, orchestra, designers and maestro with an Italian stage crew, Japanese assistant stage manager, and German production manager. Somehow, my very few meetings with Paolo (my Italian tutor) and my residual French enabled me to win an argument with the Italian tech director, who only spoke Italian. I think I get this language thing from my grandfather, a doctor who spoke 5 or 6 of them.

But at 28 and looking at graduate programs in International Affairs, I felt there were challenges involved I couldn’t face. First of all, I felt too old to really revamp the French and/or pick up another language in time to apply for the programs. The bigger reason, however, was that as a very happily married woman, I couldn’t imagine embarking on a career path that would inevitably take me away from him and from home. He’s away on business enough as it is, I didn’t want to add to those stresses. Of course, this set off alarms of, “Don’t limit yourself for him” and the like… but really, I was limiting myself for me. For us. This whole marriage thing, though certainly not the only answer, suits me really well and provides a stability and happiness I didn’t want to mess with. To me, claiming my happiness and protecting it was not anti-feminist, it was pro-me.

So what to do instead? I settled on a degree in Urban Public Policy, and am really enjoying the coursework. I’m still not sure where I’ll land, and am leaving myself open to the many ideas and opportunities that float my way. This weekend, while researching a paper, a huge bright light bulb idea came floating through those open doors – I can have an ‘international’ career… without leaving the US!

This semester I’ve been auditing intensive introductory Spanish. Thankfully I have an excellent teacher. The four-hour stretches on Saturdays are grueling, but it’s going well and pretty easily. I looked at the further Spanish offerings at my U., and there’s an intensive intermediate, followed by 2 more classes. And that’s it. I could be done with that by the time I graduate – very hopeful news. So a new, more useful language in US urban settings, check.

For the paper, I’m researching immigrant entrepreneurs in NYC. Reading about this, about how many immigrants don’t establish relationships with banks and don’t have access to credit needed to start a business because of lack of access, lack of cultural/language connections, or distrust of the government and financial institutions – and how there are some new microcredit and microfinance organizations operating in NYC and across the US – enter light bulb – I could do that! Microfinance, a hot “international development” topic, turns out, is not just for other countries – it can work in the US too! Economics has been an interesting field since taking my first ever econ course last semester (and, well, it’s in the news a bit these days, you know) … so I’m still floating on this new idea, a way to focus my efforts in fields I enjoy: economics, language, policy, urban poverty. I can be that person who finds new ways to build capacity for microcredit in NYC (where demand is outstripping supply). I can help make the programs that teach financial skills to immigrant entrepreneurs. I can bridge the gaps between establishment institutions and the populations they aren’t reaching.

And if we wind up moving to LA, the Spanish will serve me well there too.

Of course, I might very well change my mind about what I want to do 18 times before graduating, but it’s nice to have these moments of clarity and inspiration.