Camille’s Beloit and Beyond presentation focused on the impact of her recent travels — to Germany and Poland on a Global Experience Seminar and summer internships back in her home country of Canada — on her career search.

Surprisingly, the Québec native and Beloit Student Government president began her international journey closer to home at a pre-university program called CEGEP in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, where she studied international law and conflict mediation in 2019. Her prescribed courses in the program trained her to become a paralegal, complete with mock trial opportunities, court observations, and a semester-long internship in Montréal’s legal department.

She also had the chance to travel for two and a half weeks to Belgium and Switzerland, where she was able to see international law and policy in action at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. A lightbulb went off when she witnessed a mediator meeting in a conference room there.

“In all my law research, I had never thought about being a mediator,” Camille says. “I have always hated conflicts, even when I was very little. I knew I could not become a family lawyer and deal with divorce and separation where children are involved. This is why becoming a member of the UN Mediator organization is now one of my goals, because I feel I could help in a bigger way without going to court. I have done some research on how to become a mediator, and it’s a very long and extensive process, so my goal is to go to law school and then get opportunities that could get me there one day.”

Serving on the court at a Bucs volleyball game.

Camille completed a summer job after finishing up her paralegal studies from CEGEP. She conducted case research and scoured court ruling books on behalf of working lawyers, which she found to be both repetitive and redundant. The job started in the early months of Covid, and although she appreciated the flexibility of working from home, she found herself feeling isolated. She knew she wanted to experience a more flexible curriculum than her paralegal program, where she could explore more topics related to law and international relations and improve her English speaking and writing.

That’s how Beloit came into the picture. The college offered her the chance to study political science and environmental studies, in addition to a law and justice minor, with the freedom to choose her own path. While she applied to multiple schools in the U.S. and Canada, Beloit was the right fit, with study abroad programs like the Global Experience Seminar that fit her academic interests and goals. She drove 17 hours from Québec to Beloit and has been on the move since.

Last summer, through the Global Experience Office, she took a summer seminar in Germany and Poland learning about the commemoration of the atrocities of the Holocaust. Her research group analyzed the Topography of Terror, a museum housed in what was once the headquarters of the S.S., a Nazi paramilitary organization.

Camille researched the Topography of Terror, then visited the site in Berlin.

“The Germany and Poland trip was something that I always dreamed of doing,” says Camille. “Funny enough, the itinerary was something that I planned with some of my friends four years ago, but we never went. When I saw that it was offered as a research project seminar, I immediately applied. Talking to the people who live there is something that you can’t get in a classroom setting. It was also a really great opportunity for me to study abroad for less than a semester. I am on the volleyball team and I knew that I wanted to become the BSG president, so leaving for only a couple of weeks was the perfect opportunity for me in order to not miss out on other opportunities on campus.”

The trip was an emotional and transformational lesson in empathy, and she found it hard to talk much about the experience for weeks afterwards. At Beloit and Beyond, she presented a second time in a group symposium about their travel experiences. “An hour in the presentation was not enough time to talk about our trip,” she says.

Not long after the trip, Camille embarked on an internship at Terrien Couture Joliccreur Inc., a private law office in Québec. “I loved the company,” she says. As a member of the operations team, she learned the ins and outs of running a law office: scheduling, relocating offices, administrative tasks, and observing meetings. Her supervisors were welcoming and supportive, even sitting down with her to give her advice on her future career.

Camille is planning to take the LSAT in April, after study preparation with friends in the Law Club. After deciding to narrow her law studies to either international politics or environmental law, she is a current intern at Nature at the Confluence and hopes to secure another internship next summer. She’s excited to make new relationships and affect positive change on campus as next year’s student body president. It all begs the question: Where will she go next?