On college campuses, some people live in a bubble—surrounded by others just like themselves. When someone comes along and has a different point of view, “it can open up interesting pathways of dialogue,” said Matthew Kincaid, A11.

Kincaid was speaking to an assembled crowd at the Gantcher Center for incoming students. He was one of four recent Tufts alumni who took part in a panel discussion on August 30 with Monroe France, vice provost for institutional inclusive excellence. 

As the alumni recounted their experiences, they brought up the challenges of fitting in on campus, finding their own community, and being open to change, both personal and professional. 

The panel was made up of Khudejha Asghar, A10, a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh who studies the intergenerational transmission of violence; Anna Kaplan, A16, MG17, director of epidemiology and data services for the Cambridge, Massachusetts, public health department; Kincaid, A11, founder and CEO of Overcoming Racism, which seeks to develop more equitable institutions through comprehensive race and equity training; and Adam White, E09, founder of Atlas Workshops, which leads project-based trips and study abroad programs around the world. 

Here are some of the takeaways from the presentation. 

It’s important to have difficult conversations. In college, Kincaid said, “a lot of times you can make really organic connections with people you otherwise wouldn’t have made connections with, and I had to lean on those connections a lot. During my time at Tufts, I was a very vocal and outward activist on campus, and with that came a lot of conflict. There were a lot of times where I had really difficult conversations with people about what their beliefs were and what my beliefs were. And we didn’t always walk away in agreement, but I did try to open myself up to have those conversations for the greater good of change.”

Be open to admitting when you are wrong or could have been kinder. “I’ve had so many moments where I’ve looked back and said, ‘Oh, I wish I had done something a little differently,’” said Asghar, “or perhaps I could have been kinder in the moment. That self-reflection has been important for me. I think genuinely acknowledging it and apologizing is huge.”

Sometimes you are wrong and it’s OK to be wrong, she said, but it’s important to acknowledge it. She gave an example drawn from her work in Ethiopia on a project for refugee adolescent girls. There was a task that needed doing, and, in Asghar’s view, a standard way to do it. An Ethiopian colleague of hers suggested doing it a different way, and Asghar was resistant. 

“Then I paused and said, ‘You know what? Actually, she’s right. I’m being so rigid about this thing and this thing is a little bit arbitrary. We can do it in a different way, and it enables us to do the work so much better,’” she said.

Expand your horizons beyond campus—you never know where it will lead. While at Tufts, Kaplan participated in the Peer Health Exchange, which sent Tufts students to teach health education to kids in area schools. She did that for a couple of years in Cambridge, where there were limited health education resources. “It felt kind of absurd that I’m 19 years old and I’m teaching health education to 15-year-olds,” she said, but now her job is all about health education and vaccine access.

She encouraged the incoming first-years to look into opportunities in the communities around the university. “There’s so much happening in the five miles around this little hill in Somerville. There’s a lot of opportunities at Tufts to go be into community. Some of my most valuable experiences while an undergrad were walking into Medford, getting involved in some community agencies—and it’s all there for you.”

You never know what might lead to a career. Kincaid saw so much racial inequity as a middle-school social studies teacher in Louisiana that he was moved to found an organization, Overcoming Racism, to deal with it. “I saw a problem and I felt like I had somewhat of a skillset to help be a part of a solution,” he said. “I didn’t really think a lot about the fact that it could be a career or that it would pay the bills or any of those things, but I thought about how much better off the community I was working in would be if these issues were solved or if there was someone who was putting all their effort into solving them.” 

Social support is always valuable. In college, said Kaplan, “I met a bunch of people who really supported me. … The most important thing is now I have these people who really push me, can tell me when I’ve made a mistake, and we can build on those friendships, and I really trust them. When I have a big problem, I can go to those people.”

Be open to change when you see it’s needed. White had been consulting for the World Bank and other international organizations, traveling to many countries, when something struck him as wrong. In a budget for a project in Kenya, he saw most of the money went to pay Americans rather than Kenyans. “I didn’t want the project’s success to be dependent on me making a living in that way,” he said. At that moment, he pivoted his career to global education. It’s always good to be open “to changing your mind as you go along,” he said.

Let go of preconceptions. “I think we often think of life as point A, point B, point C, point D,” said Asghar. “We are encouraged to learn in a linear way, to think a linear way. But the truth is, things go in all sorts of cycles. … When you let yourself just have the journey of your life … life can surprise you. It can be really great, and you just have to let yourself let go of that need for a specific outcome.”