Saving Lives Her Own Way
Sayra Ilyas, a eighteen year old freshman from Pakistani-an decent is a student at the CUNY school City College of New York. The New York native is an international studies major, who not only wants to help save the world but wants to please her successful parents as well. Being the youngest of six children, the first person in her family to not be born in Pakistan, and the only person to not be taking up a medical profession in her family puts a lot of weight on Ilyas’s shoulders.
Ilyas wanted to pick a major that has a broad field, she didn’t just want to be to be stuck in law and business. Ilyas loves learning and reading, especially about world affairs, she believes in having open eyes and a open mind when it comes to learning new things instead of “taking [an] ignorant approach.” She has a love for her Global Introduction class because it not only gives her insight to new things but allows her to see some of the issues in the world, that she is inclined to fix.
When asked what she expected out of her job her answer was that she “would be an agent of change” and a “voice of the people who do not have voices” regardless of who it is, and what their issue is her goal is to help. Ilyas is thinking about pursuing a career as a human rights lawyer because her focus and attention has been on a lot of recent human rights violations. She has been looking into organizations to possible work for such as NGO (Non governmental organization) which is a international rescue committee. Another possible organization that caught her eye was the AWID ( Association for Women’s Rights in Development ) which is a international feminist membership organization, that is determined to achieve equality amongst genders and developments in women’s rights.
Ilyas’s career goal is go “help as many people” as she can. Questions of her career choice are continuously thrown at her my her parents. She knows that basically her whole intermediate family is saving lives medically, but Ilyas decided that she wants to “save lives in [her] own way!” Ilyas noticed that people are not putting their time and energy into helping those in need. She think thinks that people continuously “say but never actually do,” which she relates to the recent gun law issue, and mass school shootings. She decided that instead of being like everyone else she wants to be the person who “who actually does instead of just saying they will.”
Ilyas enjoys Professor Rodwell’s social writing class in City College of New York, because it well help her with her future career. This class will help her improve her interviewing skills, reading certain people, communication skills and many more qualities. Behind the innocent persona that Sayra Ilyas presents, and the pressure to be something great that she is facing, there is a strong and independent woman ready to make a change, and is determined to save the world in her own way.
