McDaniel alumni help students become involved, confident, connected

When Lin Sun Oo read the campus announcements, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Alan Rabinowitz, world-renowned wildlife activist, was giving a lecture about his work to create preserves in Asia and South America to save tigers, jaguars and other big cats.

Oo had devoured Rabinowitz’s books when he was a teenager in Myanmar, formerly Burma, In fact, because of Rabinowitz, Oo decided to major in Environmental Policy and Science and to pursue a career in conservation.

Reading on, Oo was again surprised. Rabinowitz was a 1974 alumnus of McDaniel. He was returning to his alma mater to be inducted into the prestigious national honor society Phi Beta Kappa.

Oo went to the lecture and introduced himself to Rabinowitz – and the rest is history. Except in this case it reads more like a dream come true.

Rabinowitz arranged for Oo to return to his native Myanmar to do an internship and research project in tiger conservation. Until this experience, Oo’s interests nudged him toward environmental policy, not fieldwork in saving a species.

“It felt like the right thing to do,” said Oo. “I was fighting for a species that didn’t have a voice.”

But that is the nature of internships – self-discovery, exploration, trying on a career looking for a good fit.