Mentorship at a Distance

Noah is an environmental virologist and an Albert Schweitzer Fellow. For the duration of his Schweitzer fellowship, Noah has worked on a music program at a school that serves students with “extreme” behaviors. When his father died of a heart attack, during Noah’s adolescence, Noah was unable to deal with the loss in a healthy way. He became dependent on drugs, and frequently became “side-tracked” during his college years. In part because his father was a helpful and important role model for him, he tries to provide healthy and positive mentorship for the students at the school. Noah also explains how Albert Schweitzer, the humanitarian in whose honor the Schweitzer Fellowship was established, has served as an important mentor and role model for him. Noah believes that we can follow Schweitzer’s example in order to “change the world for good.” 

Noah is an environmental virologist. He studies viruses that make people sick through interaction with the environment—for example, through drinking water. He is involved in the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program, a program offering community service fellowships to graduate students in health and human services. He plans to start medical school in the fall.

Noah has gone through many personal difficulties in his life and, perhaps as a result, describes himself as rather lonely. He has never felt truly part of a community and although he has “always tried to fit in,” he has always felt like an outsider. Noah explains that in some ways, his loneliness has shaped the way he has gone about his life, has motivated him and fueled his ambition. Although his mother still lives where he grew up, he does not know anyone there because he has not maintained any ties from his childhood or adolescence. He will soon return to New York for medical school, and will be moving in with his mother.

Noah describes his relationship with his father (who died of a heart attack when he was an adolescent) as extremely influential. Noah explains that his father’s death was the primary reason for much of his resentment towards the medical profession; his father had a risky surgery that left him unable to speak for the four months prior to his death. Unable to deal with his father’s death in a healthy way, Noah developed self-destructive behaviors, and became dependent on drugs. For this and other reasons, his college experience was a difficult one, during which he frequently got “sidetracked.” He completed his college requirements twelve years after he began his studies.

For the duration of his Schweitzer fellowship, Noah has worked on a music program at a school that serves students with “extreme” behaviors. Noah’s goal has been to use music to reach students and develop “meaningful” relationships with them. He describes himself as “motivated as a humanitarian” to help students “love people and to feel loved,” since no one else conveys love to them. Noah wants to give the students encouragement, convey to them that “life has value” and that music and the arts are important parts of life’s experiences. He believes that music offers a way to express feelings and emotions and connect to the environment and to others. In particular, because his father was a helpful and important role model, Noah wants to provide healthy and positive mentorship for the students at the school. He believes that the world “has a beat and a rhythm and when you are a part of it, you feel it.”

In the long term, Noah hopes to work in a humanitarian capacity and feels “called” to work with communities in need. Recently, he was asked to be a United Nations Volunteer Specialist in Somalia, but he turned down the request because he wanted to go to medical school. His project work has made him think more deeply about the dangers and effects of drugs, which is something that he would like to focus on while in medical school. He talks passionately about his own addiction and his younger brother’s addiction to drugs, as well as the noticeable pervasiveness of drugs among the students at the school. After he completes medical school, Noah hopes to work for Doctors Without Borders, an organization started by a former Schweitzer fellow, which focuses on working with under-served populations in countries that are at war.

Noah is deeply spiritual, and describes two guiding principles: (1) to love God “as you understand it,” and (2) to love one another. He believes in the importance of “living in communion with the world” and studying the environment because “we are made of it, we should love it and care about the people in it because we are all the same.” Noah firmly believes in trying to be unselfish, “going beyond yourself,” and “expanding your sphere of influence.” He also adds that he believes in “unconditional love,” which he tries to bring into “everything.” His beliefs are his greatest source of motivation.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer has served as an important mentor and role model for Noah in his life. (Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace Prize and devoted his life to helping the people of Africa. It is in his honor that the Schweitzer fellowship was established.) Schweitzer viewed it as his duty to serve young people and shape their development; Noah feels this same duty. Noah wants to provide a “healthy” example for students to follow, and Schweitzer has served as an example for hundreds of individuals. Noah believes that “we can follow what Albert Schweitzer did” and in spite of obstacles “change the world for good.” Noah finds it “reassuring” to read about someone real who “has been there before,” especially since the “fear of the unknown may hinder you from doing something.” Noah has actively tried to reshape himself in the image of Schweitzer. In particular, he admires his “spirit of potentiality” and his perspective that “the sky is the limit.” Noah’s commitment to his work is clearly supported and to some extent sustained by his admiration for someone he has never met.