Travel abroad helps Oakland student realize his own potential
OAKLAND -- Many of us dream big about life, jobs and travel. Robert Green is living those dreams and more.
In 2019 Green was a senior at Mt Eden High School, acing his coursework and getting ready for college in Minnesota, where he hoped to get a PhD and eventually become a professor. What a difference three years can make in someone's life.
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Flash forward and Green's back home in Oakland for the summer, getting ready to start his junior year at Pitzer College in Southern California. He's also started a new career after being recruited for a job.
" I am an investments associate at Capital Group," said Green. "I work on product management for credit exchange funds that the current hedge fund is like pushing out. It's summer job, but hopefully at the end of the month I will have an offer."
So what is a history major doing in finance? Green says his process of switching career goals from professor to financial wiz was the result of some serious soul searching and good humor.
"What am I good at?," Green says he asked himself. "What do I like? And I was like, 'I like money!'"
Financial success was only part of the equation for Green. HIs personal, cultural and communal experience also were a factor.
"I think someone from my background of being like a low income, like gay Black man...growing up in Oakland, like things happen to me," explained Green. "I don't influence currents. I don't influence the market. So I think bringing that perspective, of being an under-represented person and entering these spaces where I have no business being in that I really bring another perspective. I really bring that impact and actually can have a positive impact in my community."
Green's community now includes friends he made during a semester he spent studying abroad in Africa. The trip was life changing.
"For the first time going to Africa I saw like Black people filling different personalities, different viewpoints, different people on the political spectrum," said Green. "It really like brought out my true self. Like, I really found myself on that trip."
Green's entrepreneur process was sparked too.
"In Africa, you saw like Black bankers, you saw like Black investors, you saw like Black real estate agents," said Green. "So it really opened my eyes up to many different career fields that I didn't even know I could possibly do."
For now Green says his memories of Africa will spur him towards success. First stop will be his college graduation. Then hopefully full time employment in finance, based in Africa, the country he's grown to love as his own. Green already has a trip back to Africa booked in December. His goal will be to see friends and do onsite research on apartment rentals and job opportunities.
"It was like the first time where I was just like, blackness is vibrant," said Green of his time in Africa. "Like it taught me that my blackness is unique to me, and it's a process of making it my own."