 I wanted to thank everybody for coming today and wanted to thank our alums for sharing their experiences with us. We're going to start off by asking each one to give us their bio so Megan do you want to start. Sure. Hi everybody my name is Megan armistead and I was an epic in 1996 holy moly. And the topic that year was religion and world politics so it's funny that it's sort of something that has stayed a theme in my career to. After Tufts I worked for a couple years for an immigrant rights organization and then was a Peace Corps volunteer in Haiti. Following that I went to graduate school at Hopkins at SICE at the school for advanced international studies and since then I've had a pretty standard career in international development. For eight years working with Lutheran World Relief largely overseas as a technical advisor working with local organizations and partners on transitioning to more locally led development and humanitarian response. And localization and civil society has been sort of my topic area for a long time. I've been with Catholic Relief Services for about seven years. Programmatic work for a long time also looking at larger program quality and impact issues, and in recent years have made somewhat of a transition to a more policy position, where I look at how we can better connect evidence or programmatic evidence with influence and and policy engagement policy makers and donors around what works and what doesn't work in development and humanitarian response. So you've been on the ground in other in other countries. Yes, so I was overseas based in Kenya for a few years and based in Uganda for a few years, but I've also done other short and medium term work in Burkina, Niger, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Sudan, and I think that those are the major ones, plus Haiti, going back and forth to Haiti a bunch. So, so yes I've had both on the ground experience as well as sort of the headquarters experience too. Great. Great. Rachel. Sure. I never and when someone says they've had a standard career as an epic alum in international development I don't believe them. Great not to believe you and you said that. I'm Rachel Brandenburg I did epic in 2002, I believe 17 intervention was the topic which sort of encompassed everything and anything you wanted to talk about around the globe. So epic really was the beginning of the rest of the career I've had so far in international relations and international security. Came into Tufts as die hard pre med student who lasted about halfway into my first semester of sophomore year and I was like oh IGL is more interesting. So it did epic started focusing on the Middle East and ended up majoring in international relations. I know about a year and a half ago I actually have continued focusing on the Middle East. Since I spent the first couple years after college, mostly overseas I did a fellowship in Brussels in a small think tank there, focused on Middle East EU relations, and then came back to DC in 2007 for grad school at Georgetown at the school for Foreign Service, where I focused on their broad sort of foreign policy international security degree focus areas have changed since a bit and the program has changed a bit but and then I thought I'd be in DC for two years for grad school and then get out of here again and 13 years later I'm still here. So I've spent much of the time since working in the executive branch I spent a couple years at the State Department, focused on the Middle East just as the then called Arab Spring was happening so worked in an office that was focused on US assistance to some of the countries and specifically Tunisia spent some time at the US Institute of Peace, working on their North Africa program their Syria program, and then their Israel Palestine program. And then in 2014 went to the Pentagon, where I joined the counter racist team as the US government was trying to figure out what we were going to do about ISIS, and was part of the Iraq side of the counter racist team, and then managed our bilateral relationships with some of the Levant countries, until I left there in January 2018. So saw sort of the first year of the Trump administration left the Pentagon thinking I'd take a break for a few years and went to a think tank called the Atlantic Council. And then about a year and a half ago went over to Capitol Hill to join now Congress woman Alyssa Slotkin as her senior policy advisor focused on defense informed policy issues. I had worked for her at the Pentagon when she was Assistant Secretary of Defense, so sort of pulled back into her orbit and I'm now learning how Congress generally works or is supposed to. That's it. Nice. Thank you. Thank you. And Rachel was one of the co founders of nine map, which has become merge as part of the evolution at the ideal longer now. Amy. Hi, I'm Amy Kalfis I graduated from Tufts in 2013 with a degree in international relations. I did epic in 2012 focusing on conflict in the 21st century, and then was also a member of allies. And that was really pivotal in my career that was, I knew I wanted to work in IR but it was really being involved with IGL that exposed me to so many other practitioners in the field and really solidified that for me what it would look like as a career. After I graduated, I did my field work in India, looking into anti human trafficking work, and then came back to DC for about four years, working with the Atlanta Council, the State Department. I worked for the US Institute of Peace on Afghanistan and Pakistan for a few years. And then right before grad school worked at the International Republican Institute where I led a global network of young human rights and democracy activists in about 75 countries around the world. So a really fun job I got to travel to each continent meeting young leaders and seeing what they were doing to shape civic engagement and human rights around the globe. And then most recently just graduated from Georgetown with a Masters of Science and Foreign Service. So the same program as Rachel, and there I focused on global politics and security, which essentially covers one policy but also doubles in international development, a little bit of finance, very similar to the international relations degree at Tufts. Great. Thank you guys. So now, since we're kind of focusing on grad school, I want to go around and see if I want to talk about, you know, your experience like when you decided to go to grad school, why you decided to go, and kind of how you felt like coming out of it, you know, what did it give you and also kind of talking about both the hard and soft skills that you take away from grad school. Megan, do you want to start? Sure. So I probably always thought I would want to go to grad school. I felt like I was probably going to want to learn some more after graduation but I wasn't quite ready right after graduation so I worked for a couple years and then, but it was really as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was a volunteer in Haiti and I was actually one of the first NGO development volunteers and my assignment was to work with small community-based credit unions. And in doing that work, I mean it was tremendous, it was a tremendous opportunity to learn about development kind of at the grassroots village level. I also realized some gaps in my understanding of development processes. And so I think that I had two motivations for grad school. One was, you know, just wanting to learn more and that it was probably going to be something that I would need for my career. I really had a sense that there were skills and things that I needed to learn to be effective in development work. And in particular, I felt like economics was a big gap in my education. I had very much a humanitarian, I mean, sorry, humanities background, history and social sciences and English had been kind of my formation. But in working with these credit unions and diving into the world of microfinance at that point, I realized that I really needed to understand sort of basic economics and economic systems to understand development as a process. And so when I started to look at international development programs, I was lucky enough to have a, my country director in Peace Corps kind of pointed me in the direction of Seiss. But I also looked at Fletcher and at a couple other programs. But I'm in looking at them, I realized that I did want that economics background so the Seiss program, even if you do a concentration on development or on security or at any other aspect of international relations, you also have to do essentially another degree in economics so you had to do at least six courses in intermediate economics or above. And so, I knew that was going to be very challenging for me but I also felt like if I was going to invest time and the money in further study that I wanted to come away with some skills and some new ways of looking at the world that I wasn't able to do just from like reading more on my own. So, so I think, and when I went I did find it quite a learning curve. It was tough to be in a different kind of environment. It was, it was an incredibly rigorous program. There's a lot of math that I had not done for a long time on the econ side. And the development program itself, at that time it was called social change and development, and it was also very rigorous. I think having training, like sort of active training in the field of study, especially if you've had a little bit of exposure to that field beforehand. Was it an amazing opportunity to just be able to like throw yourself in and catch up on the conceptual frameworks that under undergird all of your knowledge that you've observed and in practice, and then also to just be in a community of people that are also super, super interested in the same issues that you're interested in. And it's funny because I don't actually use the econ as much as I would probably have thought I would or would have would like to but it still gave me a much deeper understanding of the role of markets in national development processes, for example, that is a context for, if I'm looking at organizations, you know, in West Africa that are struggling with community economic development, having a basic fluency with, you know, macro and micro economic concepts, as well as development frameworks and kind of a history of development, what continues to be really helpful. I also think having a program that was actively holding itself to high standards of rigor, helped tremendously in developing some stuff. Not soft skills, but functional skills. So having to learn how to do things like, I mean, these are skills that I actually probably started practicing with Epic come to think of it, but like having to read huge quantities of material in a week, you know, that you can't really possibly do but learning how to skim quickly do quick analysis turn out right a lot. I have been, those are the kind of skills that I think I use every day, probably still so analytical skills critical thinking skills writing would all be things that I think graduate school was incredibly helpful for that that helpful. I don't know if I missed any big pieces of your questions, maybe just add. Did you, was it was a two year program. It was a two year program full time. Was that an internship or was that. I'm sorry say that again for the summers was it a summer. Yep, for an internship actually got an internship from my former country director for Peace Corps, who had moved from Haiti to Nigeria, and I got to work for her on a USA project on civil society in Nigeria at the time so also very helpful. Graduate school is not also, you know, a light decision though I will say transparently because I think it's important for people who are thinking about it that I took on quite a lot of debt to go to grad school. For me it was totally worth it. Because I ended up with skills that I really needed with a degree that was really helpful in my field and with skills that I still call upon every day. Because I'm still in very close touch with all of my peers from from my cohort so it's a community that I've definitely network that I definitely still lean on, but it's not to be taken lightly I mean it's a, it was definitely an investment. So, I think that's also a consideration for many. For sure, for sure. Rachel. So I also looked at some of the same programs. The primary reason I didn't opt for size was precisely the reason that Megan did. I was very intimidated by all of the math and econ. Georgetown at the time you only had to do two semesters of finance and trade, not, however many. I having spent the first couple years after college overseas sort of knew I wanted to come back to DC. I knew I wanted to work in the policy world somehow didn't really know what that looked like thought maybe government and kept finding that the only jobs I came across were sort of entry level jobs, doing things that didn't seem so interesting, which I probably have to do for a while. To me, I really wanted to learn more than I felt like I could from those positions, and particularly how the US government works, I think, as someone who is focusing on the Middle East at the time, the US was a big player for better or worse, not all for good, but in a way that I wanted to understand and I wanted to somehow be a more active participant in. So, I looked at schools as a way to sort of go back to learning though I didn't it wasn't that long that I was out only two years between undergrad and grad school, and also as to kind of try and see what I could, what I could bite off and sort of US foreign policy making and then turn that into a job somewhere in DC. I thought pretty much until I decided to go to Georgetown that I really really wanted to go to Fletcher. I think for many students still probably it's this really cool institution while you're an undergrad, and it is a really cool institution that does a lot of good things and has a lot of good people. But as I was choosing between schools and kind of looking at the course load, I realized I was familiar with the professors at Fletcher I was familiar with the courses at Fletcher and so I really wanted something new. And that was a large part of my decision to go to Georgetown. See what I could get out of being back in DC, and see what kind of experience I could gain that way. I had a fabulous time. It was a great program. A lot of what Megan said was true there sort of the network you build the community you build are both really enjoyable and have for me been very valuable, considering I did go into sort of the US policy space. I have run into a number of alumni from my program, a number of professors who kind of came in and out of government over the last 10 years. And a lot of my friends have become my colleagues. I also found that a lot of the skills that we learned are really things that I have done in practice. So I only had one paper in two years that was longer than five pages. And it was like a 10 or 12 page research paper. Everything else for memos or briefings or speeches. And the comps or comprehensive exams were oral not written, and they really didn't emphasize teaching you some of those sort of the harder, not really hard skills but the skills that you need in government work, more than sort of the research that you would need in an academic institution or otherwise. So that I found very valuable. I do think I was glad I had some experience outside of school before I went back to school. I was on the younger end of my classmates. Many people had been out for five plus years and decided to come back to grad school either because they were redirecting their career or had decided at some point. In a way that they wanted to enhance what they were doing through a graduate education. I think the little bit of experience I had was really helpful but having any experience is very valuable. Both the desire to go back to school and sort of appreciate what you're getting in those short two years, and the perspective that all the students brought from their own experiences outside the classroom. I think it did enhance the conversations we had and the things that they brought to the conversation to the, to the classes in a way that was useful as a peer to hear from but also for myself, useful to have some of that perspective going in. I think one of the other things that was important to me was, and this goes to what Megan was saying to it is an investment of your time and your money so important to do it because you know what you want to get out of it. I think grad school seems like an easy default. I thought about it. The year I graduated college the year afterwards, quite a few times as kind of, oh, let me just go back to school. But it is, I think you get the most out of it if you know what you want from it and if you know where you want to go from it. And that doesn't mean knowing that like I want to finish grad school with x job. I actually had a professor say to me along the way, if you still want to do exactly what you thought the day you started by the day you finished you probably haven't learned enough. So, exploring and changing your mind and all of that is part of it, but at least knowing where it's going to get you before you invest that sort of chunk of your life. I think is something to think about. Great. Thanks. And Rachel for your summer in between. I did a critical language scholarship in Jordan studying Arabic. Amy. Yeah, so I think I'm kind of a unique case in that I knew I wanted to go to grad school from a young age. In fact, I actually chose tops because I wanted to have access to Fletcher and take Fletcher courses early on and then just, you know, go to Fletcher for my mall. That changed though when I was a student. As I started talking to alums from the different graduate schools throughout internships and just different experiences. I realized that I really needed to have professional experience for these programs going in and so I decided to put that on hold, keep researching grad schools and go work abroad and in DC. And I'm so glad that I did. As the others have said, it really is so important for these programs at Georgetown, for example, we had a class of about 120 students, and I'd say maybe five came out of undergrad. And then the rest had really just very rich experience living abroad working in foreign ministries. I mean really you name it. And that was critical because most of your discussions in your classroom will be you sharing your personal experiences as a manager, living in a certain country dealing with a certain culture. And that is what adds so much richness and depth to it. So I would definitely say, get as much experience as you can. With that said, though, there is a plateau, I think that most people face after a few years of working in DC. I noticed that about maybe 80 to 90% of jobs required a masters DC in particular is really saturated when it comes to high level degrees. And so it can just be very competitive I felt like I wouldn't be able to move past, you know the first few levels without a masters that's usually once you get to program assistant program specialists are usually around the program officer level I'd say you need a master's degree. I also knew that I needed to get new skills but also I wanted to make a bit of a career transition. In my case, I had worked with a lot of government and nonprofits, and I wanted to learn more about the private sector and the social impact and for that I really knew that I needed quantitative skills I needed to learn more about econ and finance and develop significant hard skills. So it was at that point with about four years of experience. I decided to go back and get my masters. And I love my experience. I don't want to say this because this is an IGL event but I often tell people the two best things I did for my career were Epic and doing my master's program at Georgetown I love the experience. Some of the best two years of my life I mean it was really just a great experience, but a lot of research went into it. The panelists have said it's not something to take lightly. It's a lot of money, a lot of work, and it's really is something that you should research because it's not just the two years of experience and the skills you're getting but the network you're going to have for the rest of your career and so it's really important to be thoughtful. I was making my decision. Again I have love Fletcher but I decided ultimately to go to Georgetown, and I'd say there were a few sort of key things that shaped my decision. The first was size I after experiencing Epic and IGL I knew that I really loved a smaller community environment, where I could get to know my peers get to know my professors, and I wanted a smaller program. My location was a major factor. I knew after talking to people that I would likely build my network and say and work in the city where I went to school, although there's a few exceptions. Like I know often Fletcher people come back to DC or move out of Boston eventually but in general, I knew I wanted to work in DC. And so I knew in DC in particular networking is so critical. I used those two years to build a network for after school, although I did also look in the UK and a few places abroad. I decided on DC quantitative analysis. I'm not a math person, but I knew that I needed quant skills and so for me, it was kind of figuring out exactly what I needed and my professional experience helped me to figure out specifically what I needed. So things like stats, international finance, economics, Michael macro, learning about social impact impact investing, how the private sector works in international development. Some of those skills were very valuable. And then really the last piece for me was work life balance. I knew that I wanted to have access to internships or jobs. I didn't have a full time program but just to have access to those things as an option while I was in school, or maybe a research assistant position while I was in school and that's something I did end up doing and really enjoyed. So those were the key factors for me. In terms of what I got out of it. There were definitely specific skills that I think were very valuable. So we had things like memo writing and oral briefing were really important. Our professors would always say, you know, you need to learn to brief your boss or your principal on the walk to the elevator. So we would literally have classes where we'd come in first thing she do at the beginning of the day is point to one person and say give me a 60 second briefing on X headline in the news this morning what's happening. What's important for us foreign policy and what should we do. And that was just the training that we had every day to be able to talk fluently about current events and what's happening around the world. Quant skills were important monitoring and evaluation and impact analysis, and then also leadership skills, I think, and management skills were really helpful. Ultimately, it was a great experience. The last thing I would say is, think carefully about the network, you're going to build so one way you can do that tangibly now is looking at a list of the companies where most alums end up that I'll give you a sense of whether they're in the public sector private sector nonprofit sector, and then do really careful research on the professors you want to work with. Who would be your academic advisor who could be a mentor for you, because those professors, as I found today, aren't just advising you, you know, academically or teaching you in a class, they actually become your recommenders for jobs when you graduate, and they become lifelong contacts and friends, you know, after you're done with grad school so think carefully about not only what types of classes you want but what individuals you could be mentored by while you're there. Great. Great. One of the questions is about when you were interacting with your, the professors or the people who were teaching you did you look at the difference between like people who were there for an academic career people who were there as practitioners, you know, and the balance of that, you know people who have the experience out in maybe what you wanted to do versus people who were teaching about it, and how important that was for you. I am, as you were asking that I was thinking about who were my professors and I think actually only one of them was an academic first versus a practitioner first who taught also. And this might be unique to these kinds of programs, maybe DC and some of the professionally oriented programs where they do draw people who have been in and out of government for 20 years. That one professor who had an academic background did actually go serve in the NSC under Obama in second term, so he did end up getting some of that practical experience he was teaching us about, but he was my like international relations professor in grad school so he wasn't the one who was talking to us about experiences. Every other professor was teaching based on their own experiences, a couple of them had written books, so they taught to their books too. But I was interested in a place that I could learn from people's experiences, and not just sort of textbooks. I think it was Megan who said in talking about her thinking about grad school. I didn't I wanted something more than I could learn from reading books myself. And so part of that for me was looking for the professors, like Amy said, and also choosing a focus area that was different from something I had done. For me I had been focused on the Middle East I knew I wanted to keep focusing on the Middle East but I intentionally chose a program that was much broader than that. Where I felt like I could get things I couldn't otherwise find myself. Yeah, maybe if I can add to that I felt very similarly. I think probably the DC, these schools in DC are especially practitioner rich, because people are sort of coming in and out of practical experience. I think, I mean it was, it was perfect training for being a practitioner. I think you know to have people who have wrestled with these kind of problems. In multiple settings and in different ways was really rich. I think that's probably a good question for people to think about as they were thinking about DC, about graduate school. You know, do you really want to hone your research skills and like go into the world of academia or are you looking for kind of hard practitioner training. Because at one point I thought about switching from being a practitioner to being more going down a more academic road and I realized that I probably would have had to have different training or retrain in a certain way to go that route. I mean I had, I did take classes like practical research methods and basic stats but I didn't have, you know, the kind of research formation that you would have if you did a PhD program, for example. So I think it's that practice, I think the practitioner programs are fantastic for a pair you to be a practitioner. But knowing where you want to go which I think what what's been mentioned before too is is important for you do it for sure. I think those are all great points. I would say also mostly had experience with practitioners a few academics but by and large for most of these programs. I think that will be the standard. And those were some of my richest experiences in grad school. My favorite class was a class with John Kirby who is State Department and Pentagon spokesperson now he's on CNN. He was just amazing. He would bring in John Kerry Chuck Hagel, the head of the ISIS coalition. I mean basically all of his friends, and we would just talk to them for hours similar to epic with a group of maybe 10 or 12 students, just engaging with them. Another one was one of the top officials at the US Agency for International Development USA. He'd go to Kabul, you know, be meeting with the president and then he'd come to our class the next day and would just have, you know, amazing experiences, and really drilled us on our memos and briefing skills and things that, you know, he was doing day to day and his job. And so I found that to be tremendously helpful. I will say, you know, coming from Tufts, you're coming from one of the best IR programs in the country, especially if you're an IGL student, you're going to be really well versed in a lot of the academic foundations anyway. You know, you've done your IR 101 class, you've done econ, you've done foreign language, and you have a very strong foundation. So I would think about what is going to add to that. And again, if you have professional experience, you'll know specifically what are those skills that you need to dive into more to get you to the next level in your career. And one of the questions, you know, you guys mentioned the need for the masters, you know, kind of especially in DC and maybe maybe you can talk to that in terms of like kind of the humanitarian work and the development work. But also what's the difference, would you recommend also pursuing a PhD is that necessary as a master's kind of a good level for the type of work you all kind of want to pursue, you know, how should how should everyone be thinking about them. I think on the sort of NGO world, the humanitarian response and development from the NGO side of masters is pretty required in the same way that Rachel and Amy have mentioned. You know, I mean, it's it's there's some program assistant or program manager, maybe but beyond that you often need the masters. I think I saw a question to their about overseas. I think a number of people and of my colleagues have also done sort of the development program. There are a number of European and British development programs that are quite popular LSE Sussex. And I know as are common in the humanitarian world, and I think recognized sometimes harder for a network, if you're planning on working in DC based NGOs but in the larger humanitarian world, those, especially the British schools are pretty well recognized. And a PhD is not does not I mean there are a few people for example at CRS that have PhDs if they're like leading the technical area, but not generally required but I'd be curious to hear what the others think about the DC world I think if you're looking to transition to like a think tank or to back to academia, sometimes does see it's not impossible to do with an MA, but, but that seems to be more of the PhD world. Can I just add one quick thing to something that Amy said made me think about, or maybe it was a previous comment about practitioners and sort of rich experienced faculty, I also think it's, it's can be very valuable to go somewhere where your views might be a little and where there's a diversity of thought. I definitely came from a super lefty liberal kind of perspective and a lot of my friends were surprised that I went to SICE which at that point was sort of considered somewhat conservative, especially because of the econ. But I felt like it was really intellectually helpful to be challenged and to have to defend your positions and to learn to kind of merge those skills of, you know, making a position writing a memo but also kind of honing your worldview and being able to defend your positions on different issues in an environment where people are, are presenting lots of alternate alternatives to so I think some a place where there's like diversity of thought and where challenge is encouraged I think can be really rich. I can comment on the PhD question in sort of the policy world. I think Megan's right if you want to go into a think tank and kind of be settled down into a think tank as a scholar or a fellow in the long term a PhD is important, but I have found very few other places where a PhD is necessary. And I have thought about it a couple times so talk to mentors and supervisors and people who do have PhDs and I'm constantly told it is not worth doing unless you really want to do it. And you know what you want to get out of it before you do it because the master's programs we're talking about are like two year programs but PhDs tend to be at least five. And in government service, there are very few people who have PhDs I think in the State Department has a Bureau of Intel and research, for example, and there are there are probably more PhDs. Even in the intelligence community where you do where a lot of your job is research and analysis, they will generally train you to do the research and analysis how they want you to do it. Having a PhD is not necessarily an advantage verse kind of coming up through their training programs. And I found in the Department of Defense, we did have some PhDs who came through for sort of one or two year rotations. And there was always a tremendous learning curve to understand the differences between sort of academic research and policy recommendations and policy action and sort of the use for information is different. Amy was talking about briefing your boss on the way to the elevator that is 100% a real thing. And if you're used to talking in paragraphs it's really difficult to transition your mind to that so not to say you don't learn a ton and develop excellent skills in doing a PhD but I have not really found anywhere in the policy world that it's particularly useful unless you want to be doing research, whether academic or or think tank type. And really I agree they're, they're very rare. It's really a very specific career path. If you do have a PhD for research or teaching or something. What is maybe a little bit more common actually is joint degrees. So, maybe a joint MBA JD MPP. Again, I wouldn't advise that just because you think the two are interesting, but really because there's a very specific need that you want to meet. You know, a lot of my peers did, I think mostly MBAs, and they also specialized in international development and we're looking to bring those two together. But again, pretty rare few and far between most people will just do the masters, and some will even do a shorter masters program abroad, just to kind of take the box even like a one year program abroad or something like that. Great. Let me get some of these questions so we started talking about it but would you recommend going to grad school overseas in a region you are particularly interested in. I think it depends what you want to get out of it. I think we've all talked about the networks that we've developed. And if you want to be working in the United States, then the network you develop through one of the US based grad schools to me. I mean, for me it's been very valuable. That's something to think about. I think it depends if it is sort of more to check a box and just go somewhere interesting in order to get that degree on your resume. That may be a different question. And Megan touched on this. I don't know if she has other thoughts on the development world. Okay, totally. Yeah, I think I mean there are a few people that I know that have like gone to vets in South Africa or UCT or definitely the London schools or, you know, some of they have specifics but the network is definitely real. It's, you know, my size cut, I graduated in 2003 and I still run into my classmates like all the time at meetings. We're all sort of doing the same kind of work. And so it's definitely a network for sure. I would almost suggest it might be better to do field experience or work abroad and then school in the city where you want to be working. I have a friend for example that went to see on spo which is an amazing school but it probably took her a year longer to find a job than my friends who went to Johns Hopkins programs that were in the US. I think it can be really challenging and there's definitely a lot you can learn from being in those places but it may be more helpful to work there and then do school somewhere else. Great. Okay, another question. Thanks so much for your valuable insightful advice. My question is you have any tips on picking a regional versus thematic concentration. That's a satisfying answer, but it depends what you want to get out of it. I think you decided to go broader than the Middle East. Yeah. And what are the, you know, drawbacks and how do you look at schools that may have specialties like say, you know, Fletcher, which has a ton of great professors but really, you know, hasn't had a focus say on Asia as much. Hasn't had professors that way. How do you look at that? Or how did you guys look at it? For me, I think, and we've all touched on like what will grad school do that is additive to the experiences you've had. For me, I had had experience in the Middle East. I had learned a lot by reading things about the Middle East. And I felt like I didn't need someone to tell me more of that. I wanted someone to help me figure out what framework all that information goes into. And for me that framework, both some by design, some by what I ended up getting out of Georgetown, that framework was kind of the US national security policy making world. Taking courses that were broader whether international finance international security. I don't even remember the other topics. I think I took one class on the Middle East because the professor was a really notable person. And I wanted the opportunity to study with him. But otherwise, I chose to do a lot of my papers on the Middle East. So within the context of like a class on sanctions. I did a paper. And all those like Iran and Cuba. So comparison. But I would encourage you to think about what would be new and what would be different and what you can get out of school that you couldn't necessarily get elsewhere. For some people that's going to be a regional focus and for some people that's going to be a functional focus. For me something else I thought about in choosing Georgetown was because I wanted options still I opted for a school that had a small program but a big university. And a lot available within that university. So I looked at the courses that my program offered but there were also regional studies programs where I could take classes from. I'm pretty sure they had something on every part of the world actually except Asia at the time. And although I didn't end up taking courses from all of them part of my decision was I could, if that was something I was interested in. There also is the undergraduate program there were also work opportunities on campus. So kind of looking at the slightly broader world of the institution that my program was in to me was an incentive to to opt for that one. Yeah, I totally agree, especially with Rachel's point about really pushing yourself to think like what is the additive thing here like there's so much interesting stuff to study you know I think it's really tempting to kind of get pulled into like wow, especially if you're out of place where fascinating people are everywhere like I could take all these classes on this region. At least in the development world on the practitioner development practitioner world and humanitarian world. I find a declining value in regional expertise. I think there's a lot more demand for people who have deferrable skills across across regions and then have more specialization or deeper dive skills on things like, you know, fragile states or the nexus between humanitarian and development contexts, or, you know, in addition to the kind of traditional technical areas so I think if people are looking at development they should also consider the other most common degree in in places like CRS is just an MPH like a public health degree, or a specialization we have a lot of agronomists like people who've studied agricultural so it seems like the split more now is between people who have sort of sectoral technical areas of expertise like health, farm systems and agriculture. Or, or people who are more generalists like myself you know who have studied more development processes, but have a couple of sub sectors of areas that we have more experiencing so at size I focused on civil society was kind of my main area of interest social change processes and civil society and that's been a theme that that has continued. And I think I layered under that, similarly to Rachel, almost all my papers are focused on Africa, and most of my career has been in Africa or related to countries in Africa or African context, but I don't think that there's much of, I don't think you add much to sort of your market value. If I had like a degree in African studies, necessarily, I will add though language is a plus. So I think language is important to do if you're going to be doing some kind of any kind of international work. At size required had a language requirement which was helpful. And I've used, I've continued to be to call on language skills and that's I think something that is in high demand continues to be in high demand on the practitioner side. I think if you. But I don't. I'm trying to think of any of my colleagues that have stayed in one region, or have been a regional expert and the only ones that I can think of that had that actually left got a PhD in something related to that region, and are more like academic specialists in a country or in a region, rather than sort of a functional focus. I think that's a great point it's common for people to change regions they might stay in the same functional area but I've seen so many of my colleagues already switched to a different region just because of their job placement. I wouldn't stress too much about choosing between one or the other. It is important to know how to market yourself in your application but I would actually if you're looking at curricula. I think it's actually more important to think about your concentration. So, I would development person. Are you interested in security studies are interested in finance. And then, you know, those things will come as you're picking classes as you're doing assignments, but think more about the skills you're trying to seek out in your education. And then that'll also inform which programs you slept. Some are, you know, simply better at security studies than others some are better at quantitative analysis and others. And so I think that may help more on when you're picking schools. And another question is, do any of the panelists have any insights on the differences between the curriculum and culture of graduate programs at Georgetown Fletcher and other foreign policy focus graduate programs. So, you know, each one probably takes on like if you heard about SIPA or any of the others you know what made you pick what you picked and what, you know, may have made you move away from some of the others. I can speak quickly to that I'm happy to talk offline to if you're trying to choose between a few or, you know, kind of making those decisions. I mentioned this earlier but size is a huge factor. So for example, Columbia is much bigger than Georgetown's program they have different cultures because of that at Georgetown. And that affects you not only everyone's first and last name where they're from where they worked before but what they want to do, what their families like I mean you really get to know them quite well. And that also I think affects the teacher student relationship quite a bit. For example, I had one professor who had a standing invitation every class to get beer or coffee right after class, and talk about whatever you wanted to if you wanted to talk about class his experiences are your experiences abroad. He would just would always be happy to chat. Another kind of big contrast that you'll see is academic versus professional and more policy related programs. So that's something important to look into. And then again I think the location also really affects kind of the flavor of what the school is like in DC, you know we always have speakers coming through from the State Department or world leaders coming through and other places you might have many more people coming in from the field. It really just varies. Yeah, if you're trying to choose between them, they're all very similar I'd be happy to talk offline and kind of walk through some of the nuances. I think maybe the one difference too is just how flexible the curriculum is versus how much like the level of requirements I don't know if this is still true, but like the size programs pretty rigid, like for better for worse. In my case I wanted that that push to do, you know, all the econ. But it forced you to really choose carefully what you were going to fill the rest of your time with so there wasn't a whole lot of space for like exploring, you know, new areas of inquiry. How much flexibility is there like how what are the kind of requirements of the class, the size, all of those are slightly different. And just to go back to Amy's point about the network and geographic location to because it does. I mean it's not forever but you know the vibe is different and the community is different based on if you're in DC or if you're not in DC for sure. I would also just echo I think it was Amy who made this point earlier take a look at where people end up as a sign of what the programs tend to focus on, and where they maybe funnel students to each one and my information on each is a little bit outdated but when I was looking at schools, each one did have a like a little bit of a niche. Whether self proclaimed or reputationally. You know, size was the one where you had to do all the econ classes. SIPA was as Amy said bigger and also in New York and New York was a huge draw for a lot of people. GW is a part time program. So, and Georgetown also has a couple of part time programs and their professional international security degree programs. So those are necessarily programs where the community is going to be a little bit less tight because people aren't together all the time. But they make it possible for students to be full time employees somewhere concurrently with school. So it is worth kind of digging into what is different and I think talking to recent alumni of the program can really give you a sense of what the reputation is at a given time and also how the schools and their student bodies want to characterize themselves. Now, at least when we were in school, SICE and Georgetown had the silly rivalry. But each one was equally as wonderful of a school you just get a totally different vibe depending whether you talk to MSFS students or SICE students about their own program and the others. Okay, and all of you have talked about networking and I was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about how you build those networks. You know, I mean part of it is, you know, maybe your cohort or your classmates but also how do you build the additional networks and how do you think about that going into grad school or while you're there. It's like the gift and I mean as we're thinking all about privilege these days is kind of the, it's definitely a privilege that comes with being able to go to one of these full time programs is it's sort of handed to you on on a silver platter in some ways at least that was my experience. You're there together you're having this extremely intense experience together. You're all interested in the exact same things and then you do kind of all end up doing similar kinds of jobs on a similar timeline so it's interesting as I look back, you know now over 15 years like you can see the waves of like all of us went overseas for a few years and then you have to go back to DC and now we're kind of you know in mid to senior level positions at NGOs and so it's it's sort of handed to you in a lot of ways. But I think if you're not doing a full time program it just means that you have to probably be more active and put in the time to really just spend on relationship management or like invest in relationships. And that includes faculty, I think, Amy's point about like having people around who are willing to hang out with you like that. That's a gift that you'll never have again really I mean you're really in. And I think Rachel's point about the kind of people that you're just coming into contact and some of these programs is, is, is an amazing gift like you truly do meet people who are the experts on this topic, you know, in the world, and they're willing to talk to you. They're interested in you so I think recognizing that that is part of what the, your, your doing and these programs is learning from just being with your peers and with your, your professors and actively participating in that community will probably yield a lot of benefits. And you also learn not to be afraid to ask to talk to someone. And I mean, I learned a lot of this in the IGL with the research projects we did where I just emailed people halfway across the world who I had never met and who had certainly never met me. There is, I think unique to Washington but also just in the university world, a unique willingness to talk to people who want to talk to you and learn. You see, I found from my first experiences graduating after I graduated college that because it's such a network town because everyone has the experience of someone having had a coffee with them and given them some advice when they were starting. And I mean, for me until today, I just had a conversation with my current boss about alright what happens next and can you help me start thinking about this. Because everyone has that experience. Most people are willing to give it pay it forward and talk to you. Something else I think is a little bit different about grad school then certainly college is your, your peers are not only your friends you also kind of have to assume that they're your colleagues. And this this quasi professional personal world where you are partying together you're studying together you're hanging out late in the library together, but you're also likely going to be working together. And someone is probably going to come to you for a reference about one of those many years later. Yes. And if you remember like, you know, if you're nice you can separate the person on the professional but that your whole, you know your whole world becomes sort of quasi professional. I found this when I was dating in DC to and suddenly like, how do you tell someone who you're going to see it work the next day. But it is something I think that you have to keep in mind. And if you play it right. And if you conduct yourself right your network kind of builds itself and you're in I mean to what Megan said about sort of the privilege of being in these environments. So once you're in it, it's yours to lose. But you do have to think about sort of your personal world is not necessarily as separate from your professional world, as it once may have been. And stay in touch with people, try and stay in touch with people. I think these are all excellent points. I'd say, there's also a few things to think about in terms of networking that you can do now if you're thinking about going to grad school to set yourself up for success. I'd say the first is, you know, obviously, you know, do class visits and all that reached out to professors. I reached out to a lot of professors. I had schools, one of them actually ended up referring me to five different people on the admissions committee offered to write a letter and that was not something I was expecting but was really helpful. So that can be advantageous. Every time you have an internship or a job, find out where people went to school, ask them for coffee and just hear about their experiences. So that really helped me just see kind of where people end up from different schools. And also, you know, you find people that are going to be really honest about their experiences. That was really helpful. And then one piece of advice that I wish I had heard even earlier that I always give to current students or recent alums is try to get your name out there by getting published. It's not something you can do in an internship or a job, but try to get your name out there on an issue, whether that's regional or functional that you're passionate about. Because when you do go to school, they're going to ask for a list of publications and you're going to want to put something on that list, but it's also going to help you get noticed by people in your industry. And then when you get into school, you know, building that network just continues. It's really important. And I like, like not to think of it as networking, but just getting to know people, ask people for coffee, ask about their experiences and companies they've worked in before. How did they like them? Would they recommend them? Because those people are going to become your recommenders. They're going to become your best friends. They're who you call when you need to brief your boss the next morning. It's not an issue that you may not know about. So I don't think it needs networking can get a bad rap. It can be stressful. But I think it's just tremendously valuable, especially in a community like ours that is just so small. I just encourage you, even if it's scary, just send that LinkedIn message, reach out to people for coffee and then pay it forward once you do get to that job or do get to that school to other Tufts alums and IGL alums. Great. Great. Well, thank you guys for spending the hour with us. I think this is really helpful. And it was good to see everybody. And the best way we can. And hopefully we can see everybody in person soon. But thank you so much. So fun. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you guys. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Thanks.