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Coming to Hamline I had an interest in abortion rights and the impact the right to abortion has on women. I began my journey in my social justice major when I took a Youth Activism course. During the course I completed a project about Planned Parenthood. This course awakened my interest in reproductive rights. I began conducting research about reproductive rights and justice in many different courses: this included analyzing studies, books, and articles. The more I learned about the importance of reproductive rights and justice, the more my interest in the topic grew. 

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These experiences helped me decide to take more social justice courses, and to declare my social justice major. The more work I did within social justice, the more I realized I had an interest in nonprofits. For example, I began working with youth at Project for Pride and Living. PPL is a nonprofit organization that works with individuals and families with lower incomes by providing transformative affordable housing and career readiness services. PPL serves individuals and families who are disproportionately affected by systemic inequities. I work as a program assistant for a youth literacy program. I work with elementary-aged students. I help the students by providing them with support and guidance to improve their literacy skills. I became interested in parental incarceration because I worked directly with youth who were impacted by parental incarceration. For example, I worked with a student whose parent was sent to jail. This made me realize the importance a parent has in a child’s life, and when a parent is sent to jail, the child is significantly impacted, educationally, financially, socially, and emotionally. The impact of parental incarceration, however, is often forgotten about. I realized there was a limited amount of research on the impact parental incarceration has on children. 

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Due to my interest in parental incarceration I decided to intern at the nonprofit Better Futures. Better Futures is a nonprofit organization that works with men who have been previously incarcerated: helping them transition out of prison and into stable employment, housing, and health care. These goals are broadly orientated to creating a better life for participants, their children, their families, and their communities. Throughout my internship I studied the relationship between reproductive justice and parental incarceration by reading studies, books and articles. Considering the limited amount of information on parental incarceration, I conducted additional research by interviewing four men who received assistance from Better Futures. I asked them about their experiences being a father while being incarcerated. 

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Through social justice training I have acquired a variety of skills for professional and personal development. I have had many hands-on experiences, including working and interning with PPL and Better Futures. I have learned skills such as critical thinking, communication with colleagues and peers, leadership, time management, organization, and interview conduction through these experiences. Social justice has taught me more about the social issues that I am passionate about, and why those issues are important to me, such as abortion rights, reproductive health care, affordable housing, and prison reform. I will be able to apply my social justice training to my career and future employment opportunities. I am considering going into law and I would like to incorporate the knowledge I have gained from social justice into the work I would do as a paralegal or attorney. Due to my work and research on reproductive healthcare and youth I have an interest in working in either family law or reproductive rights law. For example, I could work for a family law firm or I could work for an organization such as Planned Parenthood. Within the scope of the law and social justice I would hope to make a positive impact on the lives of both women and children.