LEADERSHIP LESSONS (L)EARNED By Robert Stephens | Photos by Scott Cook
These Rollins grads credit thriving careers in medicine, law, and business to lessons learned in service of others. Mothers have told us for years never to underestimate the goodness of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But even Mom wouldn’t believe how a few PB&Js in the hands of a college student could energize a career and impact countless lives. “Going into uncomfortable situations was the best way for me to learn what I didn’t know,” says Shalini Allam ’13 of her first service-learning experience during her first year at Rollins. “Serving those sandwiches began to give me the direction I needed and in a way I never saw coming.” It turns out, Allam had a head start on her path to becoming a doctor of internal medicine in the nation’s capital. A new survey from the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) says 88 percent of hiring managers are more likely to hire a candidate who has worked “in community settings alongside people from diverse backgrounds.” And what could be more defining than spending time with homeless people in a park or leading a group of students into rural Tibet or conversing with a civil rights champion who lived through the trials of segregation? “Those types of experiences,” says Allam, “influence more than what you are. They become part of who you are.”
24 | Summer 2021
