Wilson School grad students pursue public policy internships

When the first-year Wilson School MPA graduate students arrived on campus last fall, they were immediately given a task — to find an internship for the following summer with an organization that intrigued them. There were no geographical boundaries and stipends were provided to allow students to undertake non-paying positions if desired.

Come June, 58 students will scatter to Chile, Thailand, South Africa, Belgium, Illinois, California and places in between while pursuing summer internships in international and public affairs.

The summer internship has been a required part of the MPA degree since the early 1970s. In the early stages of the program, most students went overseas and many conducted research. The projects have gradually evolved to emphasize more practical training in policy issues and management skills.

Director of Graduate Career Services Ann Corwin said she expects about two-thirds of the students to take overseas positions this summer, running the gamut from multilateral organizations, international nonprofits to government agencies. Students working domestically are concentrated in government offices and community development agencies.

"In the past 10 years, many students have worked for the U.S. government, but last year, for the first time, students working for non-governmental organizations outnumbered those working for the government," Corwin said.Assistant Dean for Graduate Education Carmen Twillie Ambar said the primary benefits of the program are the exciting, high-level work that provides students with the ability to shape their expectations about life after their degrees, and the concrete professional relationships forged, often with Wilson School alumni.

Corwin, who has been helping place students in internships for over 25 years, said, "I see a difference in students when they return in the fall, a confidence and maturation that is really visible. They feel that they can do what they came here to study and their first year of coursework makes a lot more sense."

Vivian Figueredo, a first-year MPA concentrating in development studies, plans to spend her summer in Washington, D.C., working on basic education issues for the Global and Latin American Bureaus of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Among her duties will be conducting research on how to incorporate HIV/AIDS issues into basic education programming and exploring the impact of technology on teachers in developing countries.

"I would really like to be able to learn about policy issues in basic education, how policies are formulated and implemented in other countries, what the requirements are to go into a certain field and what kind of opportunities there are in this field," Figueredo said.

While she said she is not sure whether she wants to pursue a long-term career with the government, she feels her summer with USAID will provide her with the perspective of an international development agency and will give her a better idea of future career prospects.

Dave Holmes, a first-year international relations concentrator, will acquire his first overseas field experience working with a Wilson School alum in the NATO Head Office in Tirana, Albania. In addition to helping coordinate a visit by the Atlantic Council, he will work on the Partnership for Peace Project, helping to integrate Eastern European countries with NATO countries.

"I have several goals for this internship," Holmes said. "I wanted to be in a country dealing with issues of armed conflict, I wanted to be in a less developed country and I'm interested in communist transitions to a market economy."

"Getting this experience will help me to decide a lot of things about doing work in those areas . . . I expect I'll find out if this kind of work is a good fit for me, I'll experience the adventure of what I am doing, and if I decide to continue [in this field] the big name will make it clear that I did important work," Holmes noted.

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After spending her summer in Armenia and then being caught in a riot in Bangladesh this fall, second-year MPA student Tasha Harris decided to switch her concentration from development studies to domestic policy. As an African-American, Tasha said she was hesitant about going to Armenia, having heard of the racism that is common among the former Soviet Republics, but she was persuaded by the enthusiasm that 1992 Wilson School MPA graduate Ben Steinberg had for the work he was doing with the Foundation for International Community Assistance.

Having previously served in the Peace Corps in Botswana, Harris wanted to be able to compare Central Asian and African issues and to learn from FINCA's established methodologies in making small loans to the poor. She spent her summer supervising the credit department, attending credit meetings and visiting the field.

"I was surprised that what they [in Armenia] consider poverty is living in a high-rise apartment complex," Harris said. "I didn't see the same abject poverty that I saw in some countries in Africa. Many of the clients were physicists and engineers who worked for factories that had closed down — a completely different type of client base from Botswana."

Harris said her experience both broadened her technical knowledge and helped her to focus on a change in her career plans.

"The hands-on field experience helped me to understand the issues a little better and demystified the subject for me . . . My first experience overseas was Botswana and I generalized sophomorically that all international experiences would be similar to Botswana. That's why internships and policy workshops are very helpful," Harris said. "They allow you to get this exposure that you wouldn't necessarily get out of sitting in class and hearing a professor."

Students who want to extend their summer experience may take a year off during their two years as graduate students. Hope Neighbor said she intended to stay at the World Bank for a summer and is now in the midst of a year-long position.

"I [thought] that a year's work in the chief economist's office would give me exposure to economic policy and the beginning to end policy-making process," Neighbor said in an e-mail. "And because the bank plays such a large role in development, knowing how the bank functions is useful for most [people] working in the field."