ERC Student Fellows Program From Both Sides
Vikrant Nahal Arya
2005
ERC Intern and recipient of the 2005 Student Leadership in Ethics Award discusses the benefits of Student Ethics Office and Student Fellows Programs from the point of view of an attending student and a member of the organizing and presenting staff.
It's been almost a month since my internship started here at the Ethics Resource Center. Over this period of time I have gained a lot of experience and exposure to issues pertaining to ethics in general and ethics in business companies in particular. I have also learned the way non-profit organizations function, something that was somewhat of a mystery to me before. One of the most enriching experiences for me was the presentation I made at the Character Plus Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The mere sensation of standing before other professionals and talking about something that one truly believed in was extraordinary. While all these factors have made my time here at the ERC most interesting the icing on the cake was when I got the opportunity to be a part of the staff team that organized the Student Fellows Program (SFP).
The SFP, the foundation in the setting up process of a Student Ethics Office, is especially dear to me as that is what really got me involved in the field of ethics last year, while I was a student at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. What made this experience truly a delight for me was that this year I got the chance to view the program from a whole new perspective. Standing in the front of the room giving out instructions about some new activity, I could look into the faces of each and every student in the audience and recognize the same apprehension, awe and enthusiasm that I had felt when I was sitting in those very chairs a year ago. From actually doing the work to observing others doing it in their own way was extremely fascinating. The satisfaction that one gets after having inspired and motivated someone who is not more than a couple of years younger is something that probably cannot be achieved in any other way than direct mentoring. And the ERC provided me with the golden opportunity to mentor young minds through my participation as a staff member at the SEP this year.
This unique participation in the SFP has definitely put a new spin on the way I view the program and its value for the larger good of ethical behavior in today's world of increasing political corruption, moral brevity and socio-economic degradation. I am extremely grateful to the Ethics Resource Center for this amazing internship and would like to especially thank Katie Sutliff, Rielle Miller, Moira McGinty Klos and Kalima Drga Abreu, for encouraging and helping me and for ensuring that my time here at the ERC would be something that I will always remember and cherish.
Biography
Vikrant recently graduated from Washington-Le High School, Arlington, VA and has been an intern at the Ethics Resource Center since early July. He will attend Howard University's School of Business as a Finance major in the Executive Leadership Honors Program. He plans to go on to Law School and attain a duel degree, JD/MBA. He also has aspirations of becoming a top badminton player, writing a novel and qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
