Lauren Jarvis

I have lived in London for around five months now after getting a call over a year ago that I had received a Marshall Scholarship to attend graduate school in the UK for two years. My time here has been full of trains through the English countryside, new Britishisms in my vocabulary, and, as promised by the Marshall alumni at orientation, a rich community among my fellow Marshall Scholars. I often walk along the Thames after class and pass Westminster, Big Ben, and the London Eye on the way, and each time I wonder at the incredible fortune I had to receive support from Baylor and elsewhere to experience life in this city. 

My Marshall peers, partly inspired by the same sense of amazement at being in the UK, are highly motivated to maximize our two years. We have traveled the UK together, including Dover, Canterbury, Brighton, Stonehenge, Ireland, Edinburgh, and more. All of us came from busy undergraduate or work experiences where much of our time was spent behind computer screens or in meetings, and our time in the UK has offered us a chance to step back, leave the computers at home, and examine how we want to live in the future. The conversations on our hikes along English cliffs or during Airbnb cooking sessions are full of shared insights among a community of deep, curious thinkers who sharpen each other with open minds and hard questions. 

My day-to-day life in London is similarly flavored with exploration of West End, Shakespeare’s Globe, the many parks and food markets around the city, and a lot of Piccadilly tube rides. I often pop into museums during the hour or two between my classes at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) or read journal articles on the steps of Trafalgar Square and Somerset House. Life in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world has certainly been an adjustment from my rural Texas upbringing, but now I find myself loving the city character and spontaneity and sometimes even feeling “walking road rage” on the most crowded streets.

At LSE, I study for an MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies (IDHE). In my courses like “The Informal Economy and Development” and “Post-Conflict Reconstruction,” I am often the only American in the room, and my peers offer necessary perspectives after personally experiencing the issues we discuss in their own countries. More than anything else, IDHE emphasizes the importance of listening to those whom humanitarianism serves—the refugees, those trapped in modern day slavery, and the impoverished and hungry, among others—and my IDHE peers are invigoratingly bold and fight for the beliefs toward which their moral compasses direct them.;

We have translated our listening and thinking into action through humanitarian consultancy projects and refugee crisis simulations. My client, the World Jewish Relief, has asked my team to code humanitarian program data and conduct interviews with practitioners to discover ways WJR can adapt its humanitarian programming and funding to anticipate and preemptively address emergencies, one of the same questions I wrote on my Marshall application. In January, I also attended a refugee crisis simulation on the grounds of Windsor Castle where I led a team to fund, organize, and build a (imaginary) refugee camp in a chaotic environment modeling the constantly changing contingencies of humanitarian fieldwork. The hands-on experiences have given me a direct look into the humanitarian system in a way I would not have received outside IDHE. 

As I reflect on my time in the UK so far, I am incredibly grateful for the nudges I received from the Office of Engaged Learning and Baylor faculty to apply to the Marshall Scholarship since they offered the extra faith that I needed to put my name in the hat. When I was considering applying to Marshall, I often wondered what kind of person wins. Now, after hearing my cohort’s diverse stories and witnessing their unique talents, I realize that there is hardly a magical formula. So, when I get asked the same question now, I usually reply with a simple common denominator: each person in my Marshall class loves what they do, works hard at it, and uses it for others.;

The best preparation for a Marshall application, then, in my view, is examining what makes you tick, discovering who you can serve, taking bold risks, embracing fear whenever you can, and trusting your community when you doubt yourself. Ultimately, my friends in Marshall have learned the same lessons we are taught at Baylor to love our neighbors and love learning, which is fortunately something we can practice on both micro and macro scales no matter our academic years, professional positions, locations, or resumes. So regardless of whether you apply to fellowships like Marshall or of where you end up, looking around and finding a need to fill with your unique skills and passions is a step in the right direction.