Four years ago last month, I “crossed the line,” in the words of the Tustin Unified School District by bypassing their internet censoring software, and then shared my story on Salon Magazine. At the end of that article I pledged to do my part to protect civil liberties and help the spread of the internet as a democratizing force.

I’m proud to say that my high school dream has been fulfilled — on Monday I start work at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Back then I saw myself as a lawyer, but in the intervening years I’ve become less convinced that law is my passion. But my passion for understanding and shaping the development of the internet and new technologies as a force for social change has not lessened. And I’m proud to be able to join the Berkman team and, in my own little way, help nudge things along.

In preperation for my work I’ve done a bit more poking around the Berkman web, and found it in some ways frightning. After four years at Brandeis I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the pulse of the school and knew a lot of what was going on. Now I’m diving into something completely alien, and I see that I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the projects that Berkman is in some way connected to. Its weird being the new guy; I’ve gotten used to being the seasoned veteran.

But perhaps in another way it is good. By my senior year at Brandeis, the young whipper-snappers climbing the ladders of student government were treating me like a crotchety old has-been on his way out rather than a wise elder statesman. It was a really weird feeling, that shift from the knowledgable mentor role to “disillusioned old guy who just won’t let go and seems to stand in the way of everything we want to do.” Perhaps now is about the right time to really dive in to something completely new and exciting and different. Perhaps this is just want I need to get the passion back.

I never would have imagined, four years ago, that this is where I would be today. But I’m always telling people my simple philosophy that things generally seem to work themselves out. And I really do believe it. Just hang in there, and when you least expect it something great will happen.