Students in our Master of Public Policy (MPP) program often go on to careers as leaders, analysts and managers at various levels of government, nonprofits and corporations – both domestically and internationally. MPP students want to make big change in the world!
“Inequality at the international level was visible to me early in life. I grew up in Singapore. It’s a unique country, considered a beacon in Southeast Asia because it’s a rapidly developed country surrounded by countries experiencing significant poverty and much slower development. Also, several generations of my family chose Read more
Everyone says it’s hard to teach middle schoolers, but something about meeting the challenge and opportunity of their constant state of “figuring-it-out” pulled me right in. After graduating from Harvard in 2014, I joined Teach for America and spent three years teaching middle school math and science in and around Read more
“As a high school freshman, my life plan was: go to Duke, have a good time, watch good basketball, probably become a lawyer. I was always curious about the military because my grandfather served in World War 2 with the Tuskegee Airmen, but I didn’t heavily consider it until I Read more
In the spirit of Carnival season: “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” ⚜️ ⚜️ I’m from Mobile, Alabama, the birthplace of Mardi Gras. I grew up going to parades and watching my parents prepare for the ball of the week. The season was filled with family gatherings and parties. Extended family Read more
I grew up in Northern California, which has been hit by wildfires pretty hard recently, but it was kind of a cyclical thing growing up. Every summer was fire season. We grew up knowing how to evacuate and had to evacuate every year basically. Through climate change, we've seen these Read more
My career goal is to make sure that people are ok; my purpose is to focus on marginalized communities to improve the lived experience. I am a native North Carolinian from Charlotte. I grew up in what society would term as the ‘ghetto’ – a marginalized community, a Black niche Read more
I was born to a conservative Muslim family in Old Dhaka, Bangladesh. My father dropped out of college and started a hardware and paints business to make ends meet, and my mother never put her college education to use and settled to be a stay-at-home parent instead due to societal Read more
Musicians are creative, but they don’t have business training, so I gave them the tools to grow their communities. I started in sales planning and analysis, because I was good at negotiating and licensing band and brand partnerships. (Everyone likes free clothes, right?) I’d negotiate getting a band’s song in Read more
For me, there is not much difference between domestic and international policies. As a matter of fact, that is one conclusion I reached during this past summer while participating in the Humanitarian Track of the Geneva Program with Duke. It was a week of intensive learning, modules, role-playing, and networking. Read more
About 17 years ago, my cousin came out as gay. I didn’t understand why family members were so emotional and serious about it. That’s when I discovered homophobia. Stirred to frustration because it seemed so illogical that anyone cared who someone else loved, I subsequently advocated for acceptance in a Read more
I never understood coming out – it’s like stepping into a spotlight so people can put me in a box. I call myself queer, but I don’t care for labels. By coming out as a certain label, I feel we have to restrict ourselves to connecting with people under that Read more
Living most of my life in Seattle, I needed a change of geography. Sanford let me substitute the rain-filled Northwest for the sun-soaked Southeast. I chose Sanford to expose myself to policy areas and demographics that might be unique to the Southeast, and explore the intersection between civil liberties, social Read more
I grew up thinking if I had tattoos, I would have no political career, so I didn't get my first #tattoo until about age 23. A big reason why I started getting them was because they helped me heal from mental health issues. And ever since, I’ve not held back Read more
I’ve always been interested in sports. As an athlete (soccer, lacrosse), it’s challenging trying to adhere to both my religious needs and team requirements. I was always an outsider because of my headscarf and uniform adjustments, but if it meant playing the sport, I would make the necessary changes. A Read more
Before Sanford, I worked with Verizon in Hyderabad, India. One day, while stuck in a traffic jam, I had an existential moment: the work I was doing had no soul in it. It was limited to just outcomes and logic games; my work did not give me fulfillment. I soon Read more
I went to #Ukraine in August 2018 for an education-focused Peace Corps program. I lived with a host family in a really small rural town within the province of Poltava Oblast – southeast of #Kyiv. At the time, I don’t think people here really knew much about Ukraine as a Read more
Have you been enjoying our #HumansofDukeSanford series of student stories related to #BlackHistoryMonth? Shoutout to the series curator, Hamza Mohamoud. Hamza is a master's student, and is the graduate student assistant in the communications office of the Sanford School of Public Policy here at Duke University. #MPP Read more
Growing up, I had to look after my younger siblings. The pressure of being the "example," while difficult, taught me a lot about myself and how I wanted to impact the world. This led me to work for an exciting school network in #Kenya and #SouthAfrica that focuses on developing Read more
Throughout my three years of teaching (two with Teach for America) I thought I wanted to go back to school and become a school administrator. Yet the more time I spent in the education sector, the more I realized its flaws and barriers to equitable change. I decided to forgo Read more
My time in the tech industry as a risk analyst for Meta Inc. (fka Facebook) made me fall in love with tech policy. That’s where Sanford came in; I wanted to attend a school that had a tech policy concentration and brilliant leaders to learn from. I am also honored Read more