Patrick Shilo is a junior from Norwood, Massachusetts. His passion to help those around him inspired him to come to George Mason University to study International Politics with a minor in Intelligence Analysis. Read more to learn how this campus cutie is setting the path to better his community.
Juliane Veloso: What inspired you to go into International Politics?
Patrick Shilo: There isn’t a time I could pinpoint where I thought, “Oh this [International Politics] interests me.” But, I think a big part of it was that I always liked history and I like studying the different events from around the world. Naturally, I was drawn into how the world works. For example, in America, we are so privileged to have everything that we do, and we sometimes live in our own little bubble. But if you look at other places around the world, it’s not like that. And to see how other people live and how countries interact with each other really interests me. Also, rallying around different problems from terrorism to climate change and how people from different backgrounds and different cultures can view a single issue as omnipresent and point it out to other people around the world, not just their respective country, I thought that was really cool.
JV: So what do you hope to do after college?
PS: If you ask me tomorrow, I’ll probably have something different. But as of today, I’d like to go get my graduate degree and then work for an agency or government organization where I can make an impact. I want to help find solutions to complex problems, to problems that people are perpetually dealing with. I want to be able to make a difference in a way that’s bigger than myself.
JV: Tell me more about your work experience.
PS: After my freshman and sophomore years of college, I interned for my state representative, John H. Rogers, and I really enjoyed being able to talk with different people for my town and try to help them with the different issues they were experiencing. So if someone’s lights went off or they had problems with the state medicare or medicaid, we would be able to help them in ways they can’t help themselves.
Last spring, I was a student volunteer for the White House. I worked into Presidential Correspondence. I read letters that people from America and around the world wrote into the President and would help decide what they were talking about — from climate change to ISIS to medical hardships to supporting (or not supporting) the President.
JV: What brought you back for another summer with your state representative?
PS: I really like what he stands for. He’s been my state representative for about 22 years. I respect the fact that he has really made it a focus to help the people in my town. My town was hit really hard by the [recent] recession. Before 2008, if you walked down the main street of my town, you could get ice cream from two to three different places and there were a number of other family-owned shops. But after [the recession], the center of my town became empty — there are no shops there. John helped secure funding for small businesses around my town that enabled them to help weather the storm the best they could. Obviously it wasn’t easy, but he worked tirelessly to help keep local shops open.
JV: What is one big takeaway from your work experience?
PS: It was really cool to experience a lot of different viewpoints in reading Presidential Correspondence, especially from people who aren’t our age. I feel like people our age, we only care about our lives, our friends’ lives, our family members’ lives, and what happens in that immediate space. But being able to see what’s happening [to people who aren’t our age] and to other people around the world and reading different people’s stories was awesome.
JV: You seem to really care a lot about your community. Can you tell me more about why this is so important to you?
PS: Growing up in a town of 28,000 people, you get to know everybody and you really start to care more about them. I went to summer camp in my town when I was younger and then I became a Junior Counselor for that same camp. That instilled in me a sense of community and helping people immediately around me.
Also, through playing sports, I developed a sense of community, teamwork, and helping people. I used to coach basketball when I was on my high school Varsity team. We’d have something (Varsity) basketball-related Sunday through Friday, then Saturday we would coach middle school players, and I loved that. When I was in middle school playing basketball, it was really fun to have Varsity players coach me — they were some of the people I looked up to in my town. For me to be able to do that as a Varsity basketball player for other middle schoolers was awesome.