UWCSEA
STORIES
Julia Schetelig ‘18 Scholar from Germany
“At UWCSEA, I discovered my passion for enabling voices that need to be heard.” Four years after graduating from UWCSEA, Julia is connecting her passion for making a difference in the lives of others with the UWCSEA mission. She has just accepted a new job, leading people operations for Gridware, a tech start-up in the Bay Area, whose technology detects faults in electricity grids early, thus helping to prevent disastrous wildfires. Born in Berlin, Julia came to UWCSEA passionate about making an impact after volunteering in a kindergarten for refugee children while in High School. As a sixteen-year-old, she just wasn’t sure how she would do it and was torn between her passions of musical theatre and contributing to global peace. At UWCSEA, Julia pursued both interests; helping out with Drama productions backstage and volunteering with the Initiative for Peace (IfP). She found a great deal of satisfaction in playing a supportive role both for the actors in East Campus, rehearsing lines, applying makeup, and providing much needed moral support. And in IfP, Julia enjoyed the challenge of designing and facilitating activities to engage and empower young leaders to become changemakers for peace. Through both experiences, one thing became clear, Julia learned that she didn’t need to be on centre stage or at the head of a conference table, to make a difference. She realised she could be more effective behind the scenes, supporting the passionate actors or youth leaders whose skills deserved to be showcased, helping them make the most of their opportunities. She is particularly excited to be working at Gridware because of its strong internal culture that aims to enable leaders and foster creativity, inclusion and change, and its focus on climate tech. As Julia says, “I’m thrilled to be leading learning and development initiatives, where I can enable talented individuals to grow and thrive, bringing the best minds together to help make the world a better place.” She credits her experiences in musical theatre and IfP for sparking her passion for playing a critical support role in the lives of talented individuals.
