By Rowan Chetty, Co-T/E Life Editor
To increase local awareness on the issues of climate change and social injustice, then-freshman Ayan Kumar decided to take a creative approach: writing a series of blogs that later evolved into his own book.
After two years of writing, the now-senior published his book “Social Trends and Policy Making: A 2-Year Recap (2022-2024)” in June 2024. Available on Amazon, the book is a compilation of Kumar’s blogs that he released on his website ayankumarsblog.com. Kumar discusses current events, social injustice and climate change, as well as the potential impact of policymaking.
“The initial goal was mainly to engage awareness about what’s going on in the world and why we should care,” Kumar said. “I wrote about current events, mainly social injustice and climate change, because those are two of the issues that are really important to me. I wanted people in my community to be motivated and driven by what’s going on.”
When writing each blog, Kumar aimed to tackle every issue from multiple perspectives. To ensure this, he tried to write about these issues neutrally, consulting multiple news sources before beginning the writing process.
“I use (information) from a variety of sources. The point of the blog is to come at a neutral perspective because I want people to be able to understand the different perspectives before they have their own beliefs,” Kumar said.
After Kumar had written about 75 blogs, he made the decision to compile them into a book. Kumar then contacted a publisher and quickly began working on achieving his goal.
“I wanted to compile (the blogs) into the book because I thought it was a succinct way to document history. Scrolling through the blog website is complicated to find things, but putting it all in one big document just simplifies it and allows people to access it,” Kumar said.
Following its publication, he was excited to see the impact of his book and how it resonated with his readers. For Kumar, the positive and critical reviews have motivated him to continue writing more about the issues covered in the book.
“On Amazon, I have 21 reviews, and a lot of it is saying how great (the book) is. A lot of people have come to me and told me things they admired, (as well as) things they thought could have been better,” Kumar said. “The whole goal is to engage awareness, so the fact that people are actually reading it and have constructive criticism about (the book) means a lot to me.”
Alongside his blogs, Kumar also drives policy change as the founder and president of the Public Policy Club — a club focused on driving local change on a variety of issues. In the future Kumar hopes to work with public policy, relating to the environment or economic issues.
Rowan Chetty can be reached at [email protected].
