When they eventually open the Barack Obama Presidential library in Jackson Park Chicago, I don’t expect there will be any mention of the speech he gave on March 30, 2011 at Georgetown University. The energy plan he unveiled that day has not proven historically consequential, and the speech nowhere near “A More Perfect Union”-type fame. In fact, in today’s context it feels like a capsule from an alternate timeline. With the price of oil at $104/barrel that day (it’s around ~$63 on 4/11/2019), Obama’s plan focused on energy independence. He mentioned solar and wind only as longterm aspirations, and even proposed incentives to oil companies to expand drilling. Less than 8 years later, the rhetoric surrounding global warming has changed dramatically, even if the enacted policies have not.
It’s the 44:30 mark, closing his speech, that leads to my writing today. Addressing the students:
I think you believe as deeply as any of our previous generations that America can change and it can change for the better. We need that. We need you to dream big. We need you to summon that same spirit of unbridled optimism and that bold willingness to tackle tough challenges and see those challenges through that led previous generations to rise to greatness. To save a democracy, to touch the moon, to connect the world with our own science and our own imagination. That’s what America is capable of. That’s what you have to push America to do. And it will be you that pushes it. That history of us ours, of meeting challenges, that’s your birthright. You understand that there’s no problem out there that’s not within our power to solve.”
As a graduate student at Georgetown at the time, you can probably see why I was inspired by this. I was already leaning towards a career in sustainability, and here was external confirmation from the leader of the free world that I should go for it.
After graduation, I barely got a job. With my criteria of “sustainability” and “Asia” and my skills (none), I’m lucky to have ended up at Arup, on a group that specialized in designing energy efficient buildings. What I did have was this compelling narrative, which I’ve retold countless times. As a 20 year old, I had found a summer job in Beijing mainly to watch the Olympics, loved the experience, realized how terrible the pollution was, and wanted to combat that for my career. I thought that this narrative and my position now in Arup’s Building Sustainability team in Hong Kong would allow me to go forth and change the world.
My idealism was out of place even on that team. My coworkers had studied mechanical or civil engineering and learned how to design buildings. The fact that there was now marketability around “green buildings” was largely incidental to their original career interests. Of course it made sense that the people designing green buildings were the ones who knew how to design buildings, but it didn’t seem in spirit with Obama’s message.
That job was not easy. Hours were long, the pay wasn’t great, and the duties frequently tedious. Ideally higher purpose could motivate me, but oftentimes, I didn’t think I was making any meaningful reduction in energy use. The many hours I spent poring through documentation to prove environmental compliance with green building certification were the worst. Though well-intentioned, LEED and other certification standards have struggled to balance promoting good practices while not impeding development. The Hong Kong local standard was even worse, incredibly “腌尖”, or nitpicky. I still shudder recalling when they rejected my certification points on water reduction, because I had not included this one disabled restroom in the calculations. As I called the contractors in apprehension, about to explain in Cantonese that they needed to go back to the completed building with a bucket and measure the water flow of that faucet, I thought to myself, “What are we doing here? This ain’t saving the world.”
But it was searching for a new job that really sucked. I had happened into engineering by accident, a byproduct of my passion for sustainability. Turns out passion isn’t necessarily the best guide during job searching. The jobs that interested me ranged from carbon trading to reforestation to policy research to building management to solar financing to supply chain responsible sourcing to energy markets. These roles passed my muster of meaningfulness, but rarely did I pass theirs. With these jobs requiring such vastly different skill sets and experiences, I struggled to write unique cover letters and position my worth. I thought the goodwill I had garnered from choosing to work in sustainability might get me somewhat far — it never did. For several years in Hong Kong, I struggled as a math major working in engineering trying to navigate an uncharted career path.
I had to reinvent myself. Instead of searching for jobs that matched my interests, I searched for jobs that matched my skill set. And when that didn’t work, I enhanced my skill set and became a data scientist. Since then, my primary professional aim has been to develop my data science abilities, but luckily I haven’t gone too far from sustainability. With GE, I was exposed to the hydro and wind energy business. At CiBO, I worked on simulation technology that could help manage fertilizer runoff and minimize destructive agricultural practices. Getting a foot in the door because of my expertise allowed me to make the impact I desired.
Trying to save the world tends to be super frustrating. The problems are massive and only become more massive the deeper you dive into them. Additionally, in many jobs like policy and engineering, the most intellectually challenging tasks make up a minuscule portion of the total tasks. You might spend 2% of your time crafting clever policies that benefit diverse stakeholders with strong measurement and enforcing mechanisms, and then spend 98% of your effort getting those policies passed or publicized. You spend 2% of your time designing a beautiful smart building with all sorts of advanced energy saving features, and then the rest of time being told to remove them from the architect or developer, then documenting and coordinating to get your stripped-down design built. These are difficult tasks that are morale-taxing and rarely glorified. The people I know that are deeply committed to careers in sustainability are the hardest working, most educated, most multilingual and generally most overqualified people I know.
If I were offering advice to someone who wanted to work to save the planet, I would tell them to be strategic. If they knew a specific type role they wanted, they could position themselves for that. If not, I would recommend just becoming as much of a badass as possible and get into a position to make decisions. Sacrifice, determination and passion can be strong forces in shaping one’s own life, but capitalism is run by other forces. It is only by understanding and playing with these forces that one can really effect change.
To the charismatic professors who convince their students on the importance of saving the world, please include a caveat lesson on the hardships to prepare for. To the recruiters and hiring managers, please evaluate with empathy candidates who have shown a commitment to important causes — they may have sacrificed more than their resume reveals. And to leaders who can and want to make an impact, think creatively about how to honor your overqualified and overworked staff.
Despite my evolved cynicism, somewhere deep down there’s still that “spirit of unbridled optimism.” I can’t help it, even though I know how awful the challenges are. In writing this I hope to make those realities very clear, that we need to understand the existing systems before we can change it, and to help people avoid the frustrations that plagued me. I hope that people are not burdened, but emboldened, to remember the enduring challenge of our time as they progress along their lives and careers.
