“I don’t think I could handle a break for more than a week,” said Patrice Mobley.

She definitely hasn’t wasted any time since arriving at N.C. Central University.

Mobley, a political science senior, was one of only 20 sophomores nationwide accepted into the Institute for International Public Policy Fellowship.

The six-part program consists of policy institutes, study abroad, internships, language training and graduate study.

Mobley spent the summer in a policy institute studying international relations at Spelman College.

In addition to studying at Spelman, she also met with human rights and international relations organizations in Washington, D.C. and New York.

Mobley’s classes, running from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., occupied much of her time

Last fall, she interned with the D.C. grassroots advocacy organization Latin America Working Group.

There she petitioned to change the U.S. foreign policy, “Plan Colombia,” implemented to curb drug smuggling.

“The government contracts planes to dump pesticides on land where it thinks there is cocaine,” she said.

“This hurts people because the pesticides go through groundwater, killing plants that people eat and sell.”

She spent her spring semester in the tropical climate of Chiapas, Mexico.

There she took classes in Spanish and Mexican and Central American history.

Mobley studied grassroots development and also visited organizations that work to improve the lives of indigenous people.

“We have a law that says we’ll give grain to farmers in western Africa, yet we buy the grain from U.S. farmers.

“This means the [African] economy doesn’t grow as much,” she said.

“If we’re irresponsible with our allocation of money, this negatively affects other countries.”

A highlight of Mobley’s summer was reading in The Washington Post that the U.S. finally agreed to manually dig up coca plants in Colombia rather than raid the fields by air.

“I felt really good,” she said.

“Like, wow, I made a difference in the world.” A business major during her freshman year, Mobley was intent on getting her MBA/JD degrees and working in business law because “the money was good.”

But an internship with General Electric sparked her interest in international relations.

Mobley promptly switched to political science and hasn’t looked back since.

She estimates that a career advocating for human rights in a non-government organization pays about $25,000 out of college.

“I have to sleep at night,” Mobley said.

“I want to be able to work during the day doing something that doesn’t keep me up at night,” she said.

“I would rather feel good about what I do.”

“The world is globalizing. People need to know more, particularly in an HBCU, because people have misconceptions.”

“We need to learn how to be big players in a society where there is a lot of discrimination.”