Thinking back to what I learned at Oneness, I can see how my experiences there shaped how I approach my work and relationships of all kinds. I currently work as a research engineer at a semiconductor company in the Boston area, specializing in algorithms development. In fact, I recently helped start a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) group in my office to see how we can help the company as a whole improve itself on a "people" level. We spend so much time pushing forward technical work that we sometimes forget that we're all individuals with unique needs and wants. We'll all live and work better together if we do our best to acknowledge that uniqueness with openness and compassion.

On a related note, I took over as organizer of an affinity group on Meetup.com a few years ago that is focused on people with a sensitive temperament (myself included). It turns out that there's an incredible diversity among those who consider themselves to have relatively strong emotional responses to their environment, which often manifests as a need to empathically relate to others. All these values around diversity, empathy, and compassion are rooted in my experiences at Oneness. I'm glad that I had the chance to spend a few years there and hope that today's Oneness students take some of those same core values with them. It makes a big difference!