What is your purpose in life?

As we sat with Bethany Weigele, the Senior Director of Lifelong Learning Initiatives at Arizona State University, and listened to her talk about her background in chemistry and molecular microbiology, one question came to our mind:

“Do you miss the lab?”

All she says, with a wide warm smile on her lips, is: “I don’t regret it, I don’t miss the lab.”

I sat in complete amazement as I carefully listened to her response to the question. Bethany currently spearheads the activities related to Baobab, a platform for MasterCard Scholars; a platform that I am thrilled to work with for my Summer Internship. She said she realized that her purpose in life was to help and empower people directly, which explains why she left the scientific life that she was accustomed to and started working directly with people through empowering them.

This conversation took place because all the interns had the opportunity to have a conversation with Bethany this week.

When I stepped into the meeting room, I knew I was going to further understand the history of Baobab and the vision that she had for the platform. However, little did I know that I was going to be equipped with knowledge and wisdom to help me on my next journey as a student.

One lesson I took away from the meeting was finding purpose in life. Simply put, purpose defines who we are and what we do in life.

Bethany’s own journey has given me hope to keep discovering what drives whatever I do in life. It has also further broadened my understanding on the choices I make in life — that they do not necessarily depend on the courses we take in school, but rather what we want to do to make the world a better place for all.

This likewise resonates with what I learned from Dr. John Eaton, a clinical professor at ASU’s business college, that finding what keeps you happy and gives you a sense of satisfaction is the greatest way to achieving success in life. As I stepped out of his office, all I could think about was finding my purpose in life. I am grateful for this internship opportunity because it is broadening my perspectives on life choices as well as expanding my network of people to guide me on my journey of identifying what my purpose is.

On the other hand, I have been equipped with yet another skill of analyzing data and presenting prototypes to a team. I love research and working with data because it gives me insight into understanding patterns of people’s behavior. But it all does not make sense if the findings of the research are not analysed to single out the problem to find a solution to. With the help of Yeukai and Alley, I have come to understand that in research, we tell other people’s stories and not our story.

And so, being biased in any way is unhelpful because it weakens the argument.

Finally, it’s very unfortunate that my internship is soon coming to an end, but I am happy because as the weeks unfold, I learn something new. I learn something about myself, something about my desired career paths, something about working with different people, something about human nature in general. My expectations are being met and most importantly, I am getting empowered to determine my purpose in life.

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