CFD Team Spotlight: Ninel Petrosyan, Undergraduate Fellow
The Newsletter Team sat down with one of our undergraduate fellows, Ninel Petrosyan, for an interview about her work, passions, hobbies, and special CFD projects. The transcript of our interview is below.
CFD Team: Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am originally from Los Angeles, California, but my family moved to Sacramento when I was in high school. I attribute my reasons for studying political science to living in the state’s capital. I am a senior studying political science. I will attend Suffolk Law School this fall and start my journey to getting my Juris Doctorate. My goal right now is to go into the legal field of criminal and immigration law– ideally, I would like to be a prosecutor or work at a law firm as an immigration attorney.
CFD Team: What is your role within the Center?
I am a research assistant at the Center, working under Marina. Currently, I am assisting her in creating a policy timeline for migration and border management in Serbia-Hungary and the United States-Mexico.
CFD Team: What experiences most directly lead you to your role at the Center, and what inspires you about this work?
I emailed Carrie in my junior year, curious about the Center and wanting to participate in any ongoing projects because of my family’s history as immigrants. My family left Armenia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and came to the United States for economic purposes. Hearing my family’s journey to the United States and their reasons for leaving their homeland is one of my motivating factors for wanting to work in immigration. Knowing their hardships and working at the Center, I want to provide a voice for migrants by seeking social justice and ensuring that they have access to the same legal rights as everyone born in the United States.
CFD Team: Tell us about some of your hobbies and passions outside of academia. What makes you, you?
Outside of academia, I am an avid photographer. Often, I take pictures of still life, nature and surroundings, but recently, I have been trying to branch out and try new photography styles. Back in California, my mom recently rescued two horses, and when I visit, I love to take one of the horses out on a walk and will sometimes take them out into the pasture for a photography session.
CFD Team: Where do you see yourself in five years?
In the next five years, I am crossing my fingers that I will have graduated with my Juris Doctorate and passed the Boston Bar exam. My absolute goal is to be a practicing attorney.
CFD Team: What drew you (and continues to draw you) to this position, and what is a passion project at the Center you would like to highlight?
My current passion project with the Center would have to be the project I am working on under Marina. Personally, I have loved working on this project because it sparked my passion for working in immigration and opened my eyes to policies and border management practices that restrict the flow of migrants. Despite being a child of immigrants, I never really considered the struggles that migrants face attempting to cross the border for reasons of refuge and asylum. Once I started to work on this project, I felt more comfortable speaking to my family about their history, but I realized that had I not asked, had I not been part of this project, I would never have asked these questions and learned from them. This began my journey of wanting to provide a voice to the underrepresented and share their stories while seeking the social justice they deserve. I have loved working on this project and am extremely heartbroken to say goodbye to it. Working on the timeline has been a staggering experience.
CFD Team: Can you tell us a fun fact about yourself/can you tell us something you’re proud of?
One thing I have been proud of while working at the Center has been my participation with the Armenian Student Association at BU. Despite being raised in the Armenian culture and speaking the language, I rarely participated with fellow Armenians and did not recognize the Armenian Diaspora. As I worked at the Center, I realized how beneficial it would be for not only myself, but for my fellow Armenian peers at BU to create an environment that would teach about the culture, learn from each other, and participate in events that discussed matters of the Armenian Diaspora and the Armenian Genocide. During my last semester at BU, I was the club’s interim president. I actively sought ways for the club to participate and create events to help Armenians across Boston come together.