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More and more these days, Crystal Taylor ’03 has what she calls “full-circle moments,” times when a person she’s influenced returns the favor, when an effect she’s had affects her, when she’s repaid for work already done. They are instances we realize that we are greater than ourselves, bound inextricably to people, places, and events.
Taylor, who in June accepted a position as a fiscal and policy analyst of economics and taxation for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, can’t really explain how the path of her life over the past eight years has curved, sometimes looping itself into a circle.
“When I do have a full-circle adventure, it amazes me, because while all of these things are happening, I’m never really not sure why,” says Taylor, who graduated with honors in math and economics and business. “But when things come together, it allows me to see that I am able to make such a difference.”
Receiving the position in Sacramento completed a circle that began eight years ago when Taylor was a first-year student at Lafayette. The beginning was shaky.
“That was a time of trial and tribulation for me,” Taylor says. “I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was doing well in my classes, but not connecting with the subject matter or professors, so I was questioning my decision to even come to Lafayette.”
Around midterm that first year, Taylor attended a multicultural event where several Lafayette alums, including Leroy D. Nunery ’77, discussed their experiences attending a college with only a small population of students of color.
“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s exactly how I feel!’” Taylor says. She approached Nunery after the discussion to thank him for speaking. “He said, ‘Look, I’ve heard of you – you’re doing a fabulous job, so just buckle down, get through this semester. You belong here.’ And I remember feeling so much better afterward.”
Taylor stayed at Lafayette, switched her major to mathematics and got involved. The complex problems in her math courses engaged her, and she began to hone her analytical skills. She participated in several extracurricular activities, including committees on community building and Alternative School Break, which took her on a hunger-fighting mission in Washington, D.C.
Taylor’s intellectual and civic pursuits culminated in a senior thesis that proposed a mathematical model to describe the economic relationship between Lafayette and the City of Easton and outlined recommendations on how these influences could be more equitable.
Her forward-thinking thesis was recognized by a voice from the past. In 2003, she was awarded Leroy D. Nunery Award for Intellectual Citizenship. The following year, her connection to Nunery grew even stronger when he asked her for her help with his doctoral project, which was in the same vein as her own work.
About the same time, Taylor took on a summer internship in the Microeconomics and Financial Studies division of the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, D.C., where, during her Alternative School Break mission, she had put in sweat equity to combat poverty.
“I really didn’t know what I was going to do with my math degree, but my thesis research came along and then the D.C. research,” says Taylor, adding that the work fostered in her a desire to affect change on a grander scale. “So I thought, ‘Policy, let’s try that out.’”
Her acceptance into Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University gave her the training she needed to do just that. In June 2006, she completed dual master’s degrees – in public affairs with a concentration in economics and policy and urban and regional planning.
Taylor says her application to the California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office wasn’t random. While interning in D.C., she learned that her office had been modeled after California’s, and her congressional co-workers raved constantly about its success.
She says there is no way to predict when she will have her next full-circle moment, but if the past is any indicator, there are bound to be many more.
“I think the key to my success is that I’ve worked hard at whatever I’ve applied myself to, but at the same time, I try to stay as aware as possible of opportunities, so that when they come along, I can reach for them,” Taylor says. “It’s almost like I reach first and then think about whether it’s right. It’s like you’re moving forward and reaching at the same time, figuring it out along the way.”
It’s the ‘along the way’ that often turns out to be the most fulfilling part of the journey.
“When I was at Princeton, a former professor called to asked if I would continue to come in and talk – I loved the fact that they would want me to still be a part of the institution.”