Reflections on my two years at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs

I’m excited to share that I completed my Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

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Motivation

I applied to the program in 2021 as the world experienced uncertainties emanating from COVID-19, geopolitical tensions, stalling sustainable development, democratic erosion, climate change, and other pressing challenges. I submitted my application with the hope that I’d be equipped with the knowledge and skills so I could play some role in helping to address these issues. However, it’s not lost on me that two years later, at the conclusion of my studies, it seems that these challenges and uncertainties have only grown more severe.

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Holding fast to my particular interest in addressing social inequalities, I embraced a curriculum at Columbia | SIPA focused on sustainable development, and several internship and extracurricular experiences expanding on my studies.

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My curriculum

I concentrated (majored) in Economic and Political Development to understand the macro-level dynamics influencing sustainable development, and specialized (minored) in International Conflict Resolution to bridge the gap between my passion for development and my curiosity with security studies. I also studied adjacent subjects such as human and children’s rights, international law, migration, global governance, climate change, and interstate relations due to their interplays with sustainable development.

Columbia SIPA’s core requirements in economics, quantitative analysis, world language, and management gave me the ability to think deeply about my interests through various practical applications. I also acquired valuable insights from studying under international affairs practitioners, such as with the former European Union Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Jo?o Vale de Almeida.

In all, this practice-based course of study built on my undergraduate degree in history, which focused specifically on modern diplomatic history, and had given me a historicized contextual understanding of the emergence of the contemporary international system.

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Internships

Beyond my classes – and all the policy memos, papers, group work, presentations, and seminar discussions involved – I’m grateful for the opportunity to further my professional experience through internships with the:

• United States Agency for International Development’s All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development, where I built a digital knowledge sharing community to disseminate good practices and foster idea exchanges between winners of an edtech grant program.
• International Organization for Migration’s (IOM's) New York Office, where I helped advance policy advocacy at major United Nations fora for safe, orderly, and regular migration as a catalyst for sustainable development. I followed and participated in critical events such as the International Migration Review Forum, High-Level Political Forum, and General Assembly High-Level Week. My responsibilities included conducting research, creating policy and personnel briefers, contributing talking points, drafting diplomatic correspondence, note-taking, and writing IOM’s institutional statement for the 61st Session of the Commission for Social Development.

• Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations (representing the former government) where I conducted research and drafted remarks for the Mission relating to the United Nations Security Council and Economic and Social Council to help center global attention on Afghanistan’s human rights, development, and security conditions.
• Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) Section at UN Women's headquarters, where I assisted in creating a global data visualization platform for the Spotlight Initiative – the world’s largest program to end violence against women and girls – to inform impact reports, helped capture global best practices through case studies, engaged with external human design experts to revamp the EVAW community of practice, and disseminated the Section’s inaugural external-facing newsletter while preparing its necessary infrastructure.

Projects

I’m additionally proud of several specific projects and extracurricular pursuits:

• A graduate consultancy report for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs to strengthen infrastructure asset management capacity-building in sustainable development projects.
• A graduate consultancy report for the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition on potential good practices in West and Central Africa on food fortification, and food quality and safety. It was insightful travelling to Senegal during the team’s research phase. Our team also had the privilege of presenting the report’s findings to the WFP’s Country Directors in Senegal, C?te d'Ivoire, and Ghana.
• Coauthoring an urban transformation case study with the World Economic Forum on self-driving intelligent trucks in a major Chinese port.
• Drafting an advocacy piece for the International Organization for Migration calling for world leaders to include an intersectional prism at the 2023 Sustainable Development Goal Summit.
• Participating in youth engagement processes at the United Nations, including developing a Global Youth and Adolescent Recommendation for the Commission on the Status of Women; being selected as one of fifty youth representatives for the 4th Migration Youth Forum and XIV Global Forum on Migration and Development Summit among 1,200 applicants; and now engaging through youth channels in the preparatory processes for the Summit of the Future this September – engagement I will be continuing over the course of this year.
• Conducting research on child marriages in Malawi, generating a policy report recommending the inclusion of public schools in existing child marriage eradication efforts, disseminating my findings to Malawi-based organizations, and delivering a presentation on my research to United Nations system personnel.
• Preparing episode proposals and interviewing civil society and United Nations system staff for Columbia SIPA’s Journal of International Affairs ABROADcast Podcast.
• Writing an opinion piece making the case for the United States to elevate international development in its foreign policy.

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On-campus jobs

I also worked on campus with Community Impact at Columbia University , a non-profit organization affiliated with Columbia University – first as a Development Associate, assisting in building relationships with donors and completing grant applications, and then as a high school equivalency test teacher for adult learners. This experience gave me perspective on the beneficiary interfacing and donor relation sides of non-profit operations, and can be translated to international development contexts.

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Finally, I was glad to close out my time at Columbia SIPA as a Program Assistant with the newly launched UN Partnership Initiative, which aims to develop the school’s partnership with the United Nations. I assisted in initial essential work, such as collaborating to create a directory of all SIPA faculty engaged in United Nations processes.

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Takeaways

It’s been a rewarding two years, of which I’ve gained some key takeaways. If you’re in the early stages of an international affairs or public policy graduate program, or are an aspiring student and wanted my advice, I’d say the following:

• Apply for anything and everything you can. I got rejected from far more things than I was accepted into, but if you keep an eye out for opportunities and apply relentlessly, something will come your way. I found the process of researching and applying for opportunities to be the equivalent of a 3-unit class, so be sure to consider that in your schedule. When it comes to applying to things, you only need to get lucky once!
• Make sure what you’re doing is coherent. While you should explore new topics, it’s important to have some general sense of what you’re trying to get out of your program. This can guide you when choosing your classes, extracurriculars, and internships while creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop between your activities and your professional goals.
• You can’t do everything. When I started my program, I was advised to take courses in a singular area to sharpen my expertise on a specific topic, but also to take classes in areas outside my expertise that interest me, while also networking with professionals in the field, but not forgetting to be involved in campus life, and also prioritizing capitalizing on internship, conference, career service, and research opportunities. I was immediately filled with dread at this long to-do list but learned over time the value of prioritizing doing just a few things well. There is an abundance of opportunities, but it is an essential skill to know the difference between challenging yourself and overwhelming yourself.
• Don’t neglect your personal life. I’ve met some of the most fascinating people over the past two years, and socializing with them gave me the fuel to keep going.

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If you are thinking of applying to Columbia SIPA, or a graduate program in international or public affairs, feel free to send me a message if you have questions.

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Closing thoughts

It's been an incredible time studying an array of topics under accomplished professionals in international and public affairs, complementing my studies with internship and project experiences with prominent international organizations, participating in international fora and campus events featuring world leaders, and encountering the most inspiring student body I've ever come across.

I've realized that the scale of the world's challenges are daunting, and no single country can solve them alone. Thus, multilateralism isn't a luxury – it's a requirement. I hope I can play a constructive role in this area during my career to advance sustainable development for all.

My gratitude to my family, friends, classmates, professors, and colleagues for their support and encouragement over this two year journey. While my schooling is now over, I know that my education has only just begun. I’m so excited for the chapter yet to be written.