Alumni Voices: Gitika Mohta

Gitika Mohta graduated from The College of Wooster as an International Relations major. She was part of the group that helped to design Global SE. She participated in the program in her senior year. During the Global SE/GSE field experience, she interned with Enable India as a organizational development consultant. She continues to be passionate about social responsibility. After graduating, she was Program Assistant at Leaders’ Quest-an international organization that connects leaders from all over the globe with the goal of stimulating them to push for social change. She is currently a graduate student at Columbia in New York. She enjoys reading about international politics, likes Islamic art and trying different adventure sports. She urges those who care even a tad bit about global issues to explore the entrepreneurship route as it is one of the fastest and most efficient drivers of creativity, innovation and economic development.

A Letter to Wooster Students,

Hope you all are enjoying your time at Wooster. I’m a recent alum of the College of Wooster and of the Global SE program, and I thought I’d share my experience with you since I didn’t get the chance to do it in person. Maybe you already know a lot of this, so you can completely ignore it if you find this information redundant and repetitive. I’m writing about Global SE while I am going through a job search, an experience that at times sends adrenaline shivers down my spine and is mentally and emotionally draining. I’m not going to share my long and boring story about my job search with you, instead, I’m going to
share the aspects and nuances of SE and Global SE that have, to say the least, helped me the MOST in my job search.

So, why Global SE? Besides learning about fluffy stuff that makes us all queasy like “the noble ways of doing business or embracing moral and social values and doing what’s good for society”, there’s a lot in this program for YOU. To cut a long story short, SE and Global SE will give you the technical and research skills that any company or organization out there requires, and these are- hard skills such as business plan writing, strategic planning and development, research and consulting. The soft skills you will pick up are analytical, critical thinking, communication, ability to work in a team. This will leave you better poised for a career in many fields regardless of your major and area of study. Consider it a value addition to your diversified liberal arts experience.

Let me give you a “real-world” example. I just had a screening interview with the marketing and brand development arm of a global consulting firm. During my preparation for the interview, I was in a state of panic because I thought to myself “I have never taken a marketing course, nor have I worked at a marketing agency before as I spent all my time on SE and Global SE, why are they even considering me for this position? How am I going to answer the technical questions they ask me about brand strategy and marketing?” I assembled my thoughts and during my interview, I expanded on the two internships that I felt would give me the maximum comparative advantage: SE and Global SE. I probably did not realize it during my SE and GSE phases, but the skills I picked up from those two experiences are the ones that I believe have even secured me several interviews in the first place.

When somebody looks at my resume, they immediately comment on my social entrepreneurship experiences and 90% of the time, the viewer is impressed or has something good to say about it. Many Wooster alumni have responded by saying how glad they are that GSE is in existence at Wooster. Leading development organizations want to collaborate with GSE. Recently, a prominent Wooster alum who in the past, funded Luce Hall and is now starting up an International University in Haiti, has expressed interest in forging relations with GSE. Needless to say, these people are all impressed by the nature of this program and recognize its unique value. However, this program cannot successfully function, as Prof. Moledina rightfully says, without its key target audience: students. You are the channel between GSE and the outside world, and you should engage in this because of the social value it creates, but more importantly, because of the real returns it will provide YOU.

The GSE program gives you experience working in a multi-cultural environment, and this is an attribute most employers in the NGO, international development, consulting sectors will appreciate. You might think that you gained this already from a previous study-abroad program, but you know and even employers know that a professional experience is completely different than studying abroad. Employers know and value that in the 21st century, global and cultural differences are not opportunities for exploitation and power hierarchy, but opportunities for collaboration and mutual support.

If your concern is money, here’s what I can tell you: I know you have loans to pay off, but think of this through the lens of a long-term cost-benefit analysis. If you are applying to graduate school or jobs in preparation for the wooster afterlife, you will come out of college not only having completed a thesis, but ALSO with two solid (short-term consulting + business plan writing and development + working within the non-profit sector) experiences. This is a conglomerate of skills and abilities that you will be able to leverage in ANY field you chose to enter. In the long-term, these skills will you acquire will help you better position yourself in the market as a college graduate. You have loans anyway, and the job market is tight. A different non-profit internship will probably be unpaid as well. If money is not a MAJOR concern, I’d say plunge for this experience. You will get a job after Wooster, and these costs incurred by GSE will appear small at a later stage in your life.

You’re probably thinking: why is Gitika giving us this advice when she herself doesn’t have a real job? Well, everyone has a story to share regarding this, and I have mine. No one wants to be unemployed, we all make certain decisions which pose as roadblocks or as propellers in our life. Let’s just say I’ve made certain choices that makes my job search an even more complicated process. I don’t know whether I’ll get my dream job post-Wooster. But I do know that my SE and GSE experiences set me apart in many ways, and certainly give me a comparative advantage over others, thus, pushing me even closer to that dream job.

Good luck with the rest of your time in Wooster, and to say the least: I envy you for having more time there!