Rutgers Student Finds Career Passion Through Community Service

Imani Seung

October 13, 2016

Digital News Writing & Reporting

Professor Tom Davis

Rutgers Student Finds Career Passion Through Community Service

            Rutgers student, Lauren Rowe, has dedicated much her teen years to activism and community service. It is within her volunteerism that she was able to discover her passion for design and fashion.

Rowe attended Burlington Township High School. Here she was very involved in extracurricular activities. She was a member of the Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA. There, she was given an annual task of creating a business plan. Rowe often credits this club as giving her presentation and oratory skills, which she used to showcase her work in the organization.

She was also a member of the internationally recognized KEY Club. Through this and the Top Teens of America Association Rowe did much community service work.

These organizations gave Rowe the opportunity to volunteer at soup kitchens, hold and organize food and clothing drives, and also coordinate lectures for teens from local business owners and leaders in their community.

She stated that she believes that her work through these organizations gave her a love of community service and helping others.

She found her work at Top Teens to be slightly more fulfilling as she played the role of a mentor to younger students. Rowe felt her job with this organization was much more hands on, a quality she finds important in all her work.

During her junior year Rowe and her fellow peers decided to host a fashion show at school to raise money for Top Teens of America. The night of the show some seamstresses and outfit consultants were unable to attend and Rowe took it upon herself to fill their shoes. The show ran smoothly and had, unbeknownst to Rowe, awoken an unknown talent.

During her senior year after thoroughly enjoying her experience in the previous year’s charity fashion show she also partook in her school’s Fashion Club. Although she had found her love for fashion consulting the year before here her fascination for design came to light.

As she recounted her days as a member Rowe discussed the process of learning how to sew and draw, skills she found useful later when she attended the fashion program at Montclair State University.

Early on in her first semester at Montclair State Rowe found that she did not like the track she had she chosen within the fashion program. Although she did thoroughly enjoy the design portion of her curriculum she did not enjoy the process of making the various clothing items herself.

Finding herself becoming quickly disinterested Rowe switched to a different track within the program. Rowe went on to studying the distribution and marketing processes of fashion, something that she had not studied before in high school or college.

The change in her track did not bring Rowe what she wanted. At the end of her first semester she found herself very unhappy once again and began to look for other options. Finally she decided that transferring from Montclair State to Rutgers University would be the best decision for her.

Transferring to Rutgers brought its own set of challenges. The university did not have a fashion program so Rowe found herself settling for a secondary passion of hers, writing. As a journalism major Rowe found happiness in her curriculum, something that her program at Montclair State did not provide.

Now in her senior year at Rutgers University and just months shy of graduation Rowe has not made any definitive plans. With an interest in fashion and design, a minor in English, and a love for volunteering Rowe has made plans to fuse her interests and perhaps pursue a career in fashion journalism. While also planning to continue her lecture series she began with her chapter of Top Teens of America.

            Not too sure about what the next phase of her life will bring Rowe is looking forward to what the future holds.