Gianina Pellegrini, Psychology

Gianina Pellegrini

Until her senior year of college, Gianina Pellegrini had never been outside North America – and even though all she had to do was hang tight until graduation, she wanted to get more out of the experience.

"I'm not sure why I wanted to study abroad," she muses. " I'd grown up in Northern California and went to school in Boston, and that's all I knew. "

Yearning to know more, she applied to study internationally, and chose … Ghana. About as far away from a life of privilege as you can get.

"I'm not really sure what my motive was," she admits. But it was the right decision: "I fell in love with Africa," she says. And it changed her life. "I became a little bit more aware of what's going on in the world and wanted to be a part of helping people. "

Already a psychology major, she came back to the United States determined to make a difference. She's worked across the spectrum of social services, from supporting HIV positive patients to helping refugee children settle in to the United States. "I feel like that is where I'm the most whole, is helping other people in any way that I can."

She doesn't need a higher degree to keep doing that, or to do it well. But she decided to go back to school … while working … because she wants to take her practice to the next level.

"I want to have the freedom to do what I want to do," she says. "I found a lot in social services that I wanted to do more, move forward, and maybe even get a higher position, and I couldn't, and that was really where my struggle was: I felt limited. There wasn't a lot of movement."

She also still dreams of Africa. "When I started looking into working internationally, there was a higher level of education that most positions require. I want to have the educational experience to work in any area that I want to work in. I want that flexibility. I want to make sure that people take me seriously. So I'm getting my Masters now, to give me the most options."

She tried going to a University of California school for an MA in social work– she hadn't heard of Saybrook – and was found herself frustrated at every turn.

"A Social Work degree is very limiting in what you can learn and how you can apply what you've learned," she says. "Because I'd been working in social services for so many years, I also felt like a lot of what they were trying to teach me I'd already learned in the field."

Worst of all, it wasn't helping her reach her goal.

"Every time I went to a faculty member and talked about wanting to work internationally they told me that they didn't' have any connections and couldn't help me," she says. "I felt really limited, and decided to stop and find a program that would be better attuned to what I want, and let me focus on what I want to focus on."

To this day, she still doesn't remember how she heard of Saybrook, but she knows that as soon as she read about its program in Social Transformation, her mind was made up. "I looked at the classes Saybrook offered and was really amazed. The classes were just what I wanted, like the class on refugee work, and I'd never find that at a most schools."

But the difference between attending Saybrook and attending other schools isn't just in the course work – although she says the professors have been great and the courses have been just what she needs. The real difference is when, at one of the Residential Conferences, she finds herself in a room with her peers. At other schools, she'd be surrounded by students. At Saybrook, she's surrounded by fellow practitioners and activists.

"I'm always so impressed by the things that people are doing," she says. "At other schools people have jobs that are just getting them by, and then I go to Saybrook conferences, and I sit with other students who are on peace committees around the world and have done all this amazing work in different countries, and I'm so impressed, and I'm really motivated: I always think, this is what it's all about."

Her master's thesis is on how religion and spiritual traditions in Africa influences the treatment of HIV positive children – one of the areas she's passionate about getting into. But there are many others.

"I'm really drawn to working with children in crisis situations, refugees, or public health issues," she says. "I guess that's why I want so much flexibility – I want to be focused, but not boxed in."