Robin Sloan sits up a little when he talks about the stench of open sewers in Bangladesh.
The economics senior and Student Convocation speaker lived in the country’s capital, Dhaka, for three months while on an independent internship.
“Living in Dhaka, you sort of exist every day with the rest of the crowd,” Sloan said.
Sloan conducted research while in the small Asian nation, working on a project to determine the impact of information technology on people in developing and impoverished countries.
The country has more than 131 million people and is slightly larger than Iowa.
“I went there with the intention of really understanding what it was like in a developing country,” Sloan said.
Sloan’s energy and enthusiasm for learning made him stand out to the Senior Class Council, which selected him for the speaker position, commencement co-chairman Jim Wellington said.
Vice President Dick Cheney has been invited to speak at the May 3 convocation at Breslin Center.
Sloan, a former State News columnist and editorial cartoonist, said he wishes he’d done more things like the independent trip to Bangladesh during his college years.
“I feel like anything good that happened was the result of being bold,” he said. “You can do whatever you want if you’re willing to put in the time and make it happen.”
His interests have changed in four years, he said.
“I was so bent on science,” Sloan said. “I was sure I was going to be a scientist.”
But that’s changed. Sloan majored in chemistry and philosophy before declaring his economics major.
“When I came in, classes and grades were enough to motivate me,” he said.
But now, Sloan said he needs more creative ventures to keep him satisfied. He helped start the MSU literary magazine OATS, and also helped coordinate MSU’s Amnesty International programs.
“That’s the kind of stuff I could stay up all night doing and be happy about it,” he said. “I really like projects.”
Sloan always has been encouraged to try new things, his mother Betty Ann Sloan said.
“You’ve got to be willing to do a little searching,” she said. “You’re not going to just fulfill your life by sticking a price tag or a major or a diploma label on it.”
Sloan’s father, Jim, said not limiting his son during his younger years helped Robin Sloan fulfill his potential.
“It’s so easy to jump in there and say do this, and don’t do that,” Jim said. “The happiness, the fulfillment, the satisfaction is there anyway.
“Just let it be there. Let it flourish.”
