This summer we are catching up with former volunteers and interns of the Bahá’í Chair. Our second post comes from Alawi Masud who graduated in 2020.
Hello! Hope every one’s doing well,
My name is Alawi Masud, and I was a Research & Office intern during 2018-2019. In my role, I would work on the Bahá’í Chair’s writings and published content. This involved developing literary reviews, helping edit publications, and researching ideas and topics for future content. I would also help out with executing the Bahá’í Chair’s various events.
It’s been around 2-3 years since the days I was an intern. In that time, I had some pretty big life things happen to me. I graduated from UMD, started my career, and picked up some good life habits.
The first year or two after the Bahá’í Chair, I continued my academic pursuits and did some more internships. However, I also got much more involved with UMD’s extracurriculars. Seeing how the university was from the faculty perspective, I got a lot of ideas and gained a lot of motivation to try and make UMD a better place. I became president of the Prison Resistance Project, a campus club focused on UMD’s role in the prison industrial complex. I became an off campus legislature for SGA. At the end of it all, I was awarded UMD’s Office of Multicultural Involvement & Community Advocacy 2020 Champion of Diversity.
I also ended up getting a philosophy minor. Being exposed to all of the variety of research that the Bahá’í Chair does, it really made me think more deeply about myself and my surroundings.
I graduated in 2020, the senior class during the beginning of the pandemic. It was a weird time, but I was very lucky to have found a career trajectory. I got into project management after an internship with a youth development non profit called ILIA. This luckily turned into a full time job. I would run the back-end and logistics for the organization: making sure instructors had what they needed for their classes; helping set up marketing and events; making sure that students and their families were doing well with the organization; and making sure that the organization had what it needs to keep chugging along for the future. I also got a Google Career Project Management Certification.
Right now I’m undertaking the US Critical Language Scholarship program for the study of Bangla. It’s pretty intense, but I’m quite grateful that I’m able to do the program. I couldn’t have gotten it without Professor. Hoda Mahmoudi and the Bahá’í Chair (this isn’t an exaggeration, Professor Mahmoudi wrote my recommendation letter for it.)
Education and career goals aside, one thing I’m pretty happy about is the good life habits that I picked up. I just feel a lot better about life after committing to these habits (a lot more optimistic, much more able to concentrate, less random bouts of sadness over me, etc.). It took a really long time to get them, but I learned a lot about myself from the work it took me to get here.
The first big life habit is that I read books now! I used to love books as a kid, but as I got older the natural affinity to read just came less and less. The way I fixed it was by getting an E-Reader. I bought a random e-reader from eBay that was able to load PDFs. Using it, reading just clicked for me. I no longer get an “ugh” feeling from reading since the thickness of the book doesn’t discourage me anymore. I just read without thinking about it. Before I knew it, I started reading like I was a kid again.
There are some other habits that I got into these past few years. I started waking up early. I got into using gymnastic rings to workout. I realized that being comfortable with being good enough will get you much farther than trying to be perfect. I still have a lot more in my life I need to work on, but I’m happy with the progress that I have made. I’m excited for what the next 5, 10, 25 years after the Bahá’í Chair have in store for me and this institution.
About the Author
Alawi Masud graduated from the University of Maryland in May 202o with a bachelor’s degree in government and politics and minors in philosophy and international development and conflict management. He is currently a US Critical Languages Scholar.