Alexis McGivern, Environmental Scientist at Oxford University
Alexis McGivern
La Châtaigneraie, 2011
Environmental Scientist at Oxford University
United Kingdom
Learn more about me :
I’m a graduate student at the University of Oxford conducting research in the School of Geography and the Environment. My research looks at the relationship between social deprivation, race and the location of waste incinerators in England. I’m part of a joint programme with the business school here, so I’ll be starting my MBA next fall (2021). I am really passionate about waste management solutions that are environmentally sustainable, financially feasible and socially just.
My favourite Ecolint memory is the day we handed in our Extended Essays! It had snowed a great deal and a lot of people were unable to make it into school. It was a memorable day, and a huge weight off my shoulders!
Ecolint fosters critical thinking and encourages students to reflect on the world and power systems around them. I believe there are phenomenal opportunities given to each student to really critically examine how and why the world operates the way it does, and how you can use your own life and work to disrupt that (for the better!). I also believe I hugely benefitted from growing up in a diverse cohort of people, allowing me to learn from different cultural backgrounds as well as from the high-quality teaching at the school.
If I could do it all over again, I would get out of the Ecolint bubble more! We were hugely insulated within a very privileged community, and I felt it was only in coming back to Switzerland as an adult (I moved back for a job after my undergraduate degree and lived there from 2015-2018) that I understood the day-to-day realities of the many communities that live alongside us. There are phenomenal community groups that operate and support people in need around Suisse Romande, and I believe I would have been more deeply embedded in this special country had I learned of them earlier.
My words of wisdom for Ecolint students: A motto I live my life by is: “You have a direct responsibility to make this world a better place than the one you grew up in.” It’s so important to constantly question the world and your position in it! Question the inequalities you see and ask yourself how you can undo the systems that produce those inequalities.
To make the world a better place, you also need to know it well: diversify what you are reading, who you are reading, where you are getting your information from and what kinds of conversations you are having in your life. For example, whose histories are you not being taught in your classroom? What knowledge systems are being prioritised? Go further in the critical thinking that Ecolint encourages, and make it contagious with your friends and family.