Heller Admissions Blog: Welcome!

Neighborhood Profile: Somerville

Today I’m continuing the series that I started last week focusing on popular neighborhoods for Brandeis students living off campus. Finding the right apartment and neighborhood to call your home for the next few years can often feel like a challenge, so in this series, I’ll explore some of the best places to live near the university, highlighting the unique characteristics and attractions of each neighborhood. Whether you’re an incoming freshman or a returning student looking for a new place to live, this series will provide valuable insights to help you find the perfect home away from home. Next up: Somerville!

Distance from campus: 6 – 11 miles away, depending on where you live

Distance to Boston: ~4 miles

Average rent: $2,500 for a studio; $2,500 for a one bedroom; $3,100 for a two bedroom ($1,550 per person); $3,600 for a three bedroom ($1,200 per person); $4,350 for a four bedroom ($1,087 per person)

Transportation: Somerville benefits from excellent transportation options for Brandeis students, since the Fitchberg line connects Porter Square and the Brandeis/Waltham stop. Additionally, the MBTA Red Line, Orange Line, and Green Line Extension provide convenient access to various parts of the city. Additionally, several bus routes serve Somerville, connecting residents to neighboring towns and cities. Buses provide service to virtually all points in the metropolitan Boston area. The number 553 bus runs by Brandeis, goes through the center of Waltham and into Newton. It is a great alternative to driving through Waltham. From Main Street, at the end of South Street near the Walgreens, or at the Cedarwood stop, located at the back end of campus, one can catch the numbers 70 and 70A buses that go to Central Square in Cambridge by way of Watertown. For those who prefer driving, Somerville is well-connected to major highways such as I-90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) and I-93, facilitating easy access to Boston, Cambridge, and Waltham.

Restaurants: Somerville is renowned for its vibrant culinary scene, offering a diverse range of restaurants, cafes, and bars. Davis Square, Union Square, and Assembly Row are popular destinations for food lovers. Whether you’re craving a delicious pizza, sushi, or a cozy brunch spot, Somerville has you covered. Some notable dining establishments in Somerville include Sarma, Highland Kitchen, Tasting Counter, and Juliet.

Outdoor activities: Nature enthusiasts will appreciate Somerville’s proximity to parks and green spaces. The city is located near the Mystic River, providing opportunities for waterfront activities, such as kayaking and paddleboarding. The nearby Middlesex Fells Reservation offers beautiful hiking trails and scenic views. Davis Square also hosts a weekly farmers market during the summer months, where you can explore local produce and artisanal goods.

Entertainment: Somerville boasts a vibrant arts and entertainment scene. You’ll find various art galleries showcasing the work of local artists, such as the Nave Gallery and the Somerville Museum. If you’re a music lover, Somerville offers a range of live music venues and events. Once you venture out to nearby neighborhoods like Cambridge and Boston, you’ll have access to renowned venues like The Sinclair, The Middle East, and Paradise Rock Club. Additionally, Somerville hosts a variety of festivals throughout the year, including the renowned Somerville Arts Council’s ArtBeat festival and the Fluff Festival celebrating the beloved marshmallow spread.

In summary, Somerville is a dynamic and vibrant city with a thriving food scene, ample outdoor activities, and convenient transportation options. Its close proximity to Boston and neighboring towns makes it an appealing place to live for those seeking a mix of urban amenities and a suburban lifestyle. Whether you’re exploring local cuisine, enjoying outdoor adventures, or immersing yourself in the arts, Somerville has something to offer for everyone.

Celebrating Heller Admissions Graduates

May 23, 2023 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

In our most recent blog, Roniunique Clark shared her reflections on her Letter to My Future self, but Ronunique isn’t our only Heller Admissions blog writer who graduated this past Sunday. We’re also saying good-bye to Neh Meh (who graduated from the SID/COEX program) and Andy Mendez, who graduated from the MBA/SID program, and was chosen as the graduation speaker for the MBA program. Here’s what Andy had to say:

“I want to start by wishing a good afternoon to our fearless leader, Interim Dean Maria Madison, as well as to the members of the Heller administration, faculty, and staff. I also want to give a very warm welcome to all of our esteemed and honored guests who’ve traveled far and wide to be here with us today. Thank you for joining us as we celebrate this milestone moment in the lives of the 2023 graduating class.

It is my distinct honor and pleasure to be up here today representing my friends and colleagues in the Social Impact MBA program. My community back home in Florida knows me as Andrea Alicia Mendez or Andrea Alicia Mendez (said with an accent), depending on which side of my family you ask, but as a member of this community and among my peers at the Heller School, I’m simply Andy. As I stand here with you all at the tail end of this long, intellectual journey, I am conscious of the fact that this is the start of a new chapter for each and every one of us. That chapter may take us across the street, across town, across the country, or around the world. No matter where we each may end up, I am confident that the skills we’ve developed, the perspective we’ve gained, and the friendships we’ve made will stay with us for years to come.

Some of you began your graduate degree programs with a clear idea of what you wanted this journey to look like, and, at the end, you’ve landed exactly where you intended to be. For others, this program has inspired you to shift and pivot in ways you did not expect. Both experiences are valid and worth celebrating.

I stand here before you with a heart full of gratitude. I’m grateful to each of you for voicing your insights, for sharing your cultures, and for considering new perspectives. The Heller School isn’t just the name on our degrees, isn’t just the building where we took our classes — the Heller School is a living, breathing community. The Heller School exists and continues to thrive because each and every one of you has contributed something special and irreplaceable to our collective experience. As we depart to fulfill our separate callings and to chart our own paths forward, let us take the spirit of this unique community with us. Graduates — I am so happy to be sharing this day and this accomplishment and this moment with you. I couldn’t have done it without you, and you couldn’t have done this without each other. With that, let me say a final congratulations to the class of 2023 — it’s a wrap!”

Personally, I would like to thank both Andy and Ronunique for their service to the Heller Admissions blog. They’ve shared a lot of valuable advice and perspectives over the past years, and they will be missed dearly. I’m looking forward to having some new Graduate Assistants joining us in the fall, and I can’t wait for you to hear their stories.

Reflections on my Letter to my Future Self

May 18, 2023 / rclark / 0 Comments

Ronunique Clark, MPP’23

Alexa, play Teyana Taylor’s “Made It”! Whew, where did the time go? Two years ago, I accepted my admission offer to attend Heller, and now I am sitting here two years later to tell you that I have completed all program requirements and will be graduating May 21st, 2023. I have written many, many, many blogs to you all before, but let’s take a trip down memory lane to my second blog post of my time here at admissions, “Letter to my Future Self”, and let’s respond back to little ole me from a year ago:

The time has final come! It is May 2023 and you were able to complete not one, but two degrees during a global pandemic. Cheers to that! Even when everyone thought you were crazy for going into a Master’s program 3 months after graduating from undergrad, you were able to overcome and prove them wrong. – Yessssss, cheers to that! 23 years old with two degrees. Yes, you did go back to back and you did the darn thing, even if you broke a sweat or two. You overcame every difficulty faced and proved everyone wrong!
Another exciting part is that not only have you gotten your Master of Public Policy, but your first best friend, Mom, is graduating at the same time with her bachelor’s degree. Please hold the tears for after the ceremonies. – After 20 years, my mom finally got her bachelor’s! I am extremely proud of her and it is unfortunate that our ceremonies ended up being a day a part from each other, so we are not attending hers. She has told me I am the one who inspired her to go back and get it done, but in reality she is and has always been the true inspiration and I would have not made it this far without her everlasting love and support. A lot of people doubted us, doubted our journey, doubted the outcomes, but here we are mother and daughter with degrees! 2023 is our year for sure!
You have gained all this incredible knowledge on how to combat social inequities, where do you go from here? I hope that you stuck with your dream of creating an initiative that will educate formerly incarcerated individuals in California on why voting matters, how to register to vote, and making sure that their votes are counted! Do you plan to go back home to the Bay Area to assist your community in the fight to end violence? Have you taken your gems elsewhere to another community in need? Are you helping the fight for access to adequate government programs? – Even though I have not kicked off my initiative, I know that it is never too late! But I am happy to say that I will be returning to the Bay Area this coming August with a offer to partake in the City and County of San Francisco Fellows program, working in the government public sector, which I have always loved. My biggest goal was to always bridge the gap and fight for access to adequate government programs and within the fellowship program, I will be able to continue this process. Massachusetts degreed me, but the Bay Area raised me, and being able to take my gems back to my community is truly the best part.
Do not forget to always be your best yourself in every situation. You have always been more than enough. I know you have not only impacted your own life, but others as well, which has and will always be your number one purpose in life. You were adaptable, strong, and resilient. I can not wait to see where and what you do in this next chapter. The price was high but the reward was greater. – I always admired how you always stayed true to yourself, no matter the situation or circumstance. You have shown endless resilience that maybe you sometimes felt wasn’t recognized. But even when you doubted the recognition, someone was always watching and appreciative. This program has showed you why you have always been more than enough and how your presences alone can fill a room. You prayed and manifested this next chapter: the reward was always greater than the price.

Thank you Heller for seeing my potential and trusting my skills that has led me to completing this program on time. Thank you to my cohort for showing up every day and inspiring me in more ways than I ever imagined. Thank you, Heller Admissions, for providing me with this opportunity to be able to share my story and insights to prospective students through emails, ambassador meetings, and the Heller Blog. Thank you to my family and friends for the continuous love and support as I navigated higher academia. So excited to become a Heller Alumna!

Neighborhood Profile: Waltham

May 16, 2023 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Today, I’m kicking off a new series that will be released throughout the summer, focusing on popular neighborhoods for Brandeis students living off campus. Finding the right apartment and neighborhood to call your home for the next few years can often feel like a challenge, so in this series, I’ll explore some of the best places to live near the university, highlighting the unique characteristics and attractions of each neighborhood. Whether you’re an incoming freshman or a returning student looking for a new place to live, this series will provide valuable insights to help you find the perfect home away from home. First up: Waltham!

Distance from campus: .25 – 2.5 miles away, depending on where you live

Distance to Boston: ~9 miles

Average rent: $1,750 for a studio; $2,395 for a one bedroom; $2850 for a two bedroom ($1,425 per person); $3,250 for a three bedroom ($1,083 per person); $3,800 for a four bedroom ($950 per person)

Transportation: Waltham is served by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which operates commuter rail, bus, and subway services throughout the greater Boston area. The Waltham station on the Fitchburg Line provides commuter rail service to downtown Boston, with trains running every hour during peak times. The MBTA bus system also has several routes that run through Waltham, connecting residents to neighboring towns and cities. For those who prefer to drive, Waltham is conveniently located near several major highways, including I-90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) and I-95/Route 128. These highways provide easy access to Boston, Cambridge, and other surrounding towns.

Restaurants: Waltham is known for its diverse range of restaurants, cafes, and bars, catering to every taste and budget. Moody Street, in particular, is known for its wide variety of dining options, including Italian, Asian, and American cuisine. Some of the most popular restaurants in Waltham include Deep Ellum, Sweet Basil, In a Pickle Restaurant, Lizzy’s Ice Cream and The Chateau.

Outdoor activities: The city is surrounded by several parks and nature reserves, including the Waltham Riverwalk, the Charles River Greenway, and the Beaver Brook Reservation. These offer miles of trails for hiking, biking, and walking. The Charles River is also a great place to kayak, paddleboard, or fish.

Entertainment: Waltham is home to several art galleries, including the Robert Treat Paine Estate’s Gallery 121, which features rotating exhibits of contemporary art, and the Waltham Mills Artist Association, which showcases the work of local artists. For music lovers, Waltham is only a short train ride away from venues like Roadrunner, Brighton Music Hall, and Paradise Rock Club, but Waltham also has venues of it’s own, including The Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, which features a variety of music events throughout the year, and the Watch City Brewing Company, which hosts weekly live music performances. Waltham is also host to several yearly festivals, including the Watch City Steampunk Festival, Spring Fest, and the Phantom Gourmet Food Festival.

In short, Waltham is an affordable and easily accessible city with a diverse range of restaurants, outdoor activities, and easy transportation options. Its proximity to Boston and other surrounding towns makes it an ideal place to live for those who want to enjoy the suburban lifestyle while still having easy access to urban amenities. Plus, you can’t beat that short travel time to Brandeis’ campus!

AmeriCorps + Heller: A Perfect Combination

May 11, 2023 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

As someone who did not jump straight into graduate school after undergrad, the work experience I gained during the four years in between degree programs informed my perspective and broadened my outlook in important ways. Once I began the MBA/SID program here at The Heller School, I routinely drew on these previous experiences during classroom discussions, course assignments, and group projects. A lot happened for me during the gap years in between my undergraduate and graduate school studies, but the most impactful experiences were the two years I spent as a Youth Development Volunteer in Peace Corps Morocco and the two years I spent supporting a network of legal aid organizations as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Chicago. My AmeriCorps experience, in particular, positioned me well for my studies at Heller.

Although there are many different AmeriCorps programs (including City Year, NCCC, AmeriCorps State and National), I chose AmeriCorps VISTA because it was the only AmeriCorps program that was focused on capacity building instead of providing direct service. The goal of direct service is, for example, to have volunteers teach and mentor students. In contrast, a volunteer focused on capacity building improves an organization’s ability to provide these teaching and mentorship services by developing a database of mentors, writing an education curriculum, forging new partnerships, and identifying sustainable sources of funding.

As an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader at Legal Aid Chicago, I was part of the Program Administration Team that managed a collaboration among a network of nine different legal aid organizations throughout the state of Illinois. Each of our organizations focused on access to justice work – helping low income individuals and minorities navigate the legal system – but with a slightly different focus. Part of my role was to recruit and onboard the annual cohort of 45 AmeriCorps VISTA Members who would be assigned to various projects throughout our nine partner organizations. AmeriCorps VISTA Members played important capacity building roles during their one year of service that enabled these organizations to provide services more efficiently and to a larger number of beneficiaries. My experience in the AmeriCorps program gave me first-hand exposure to how nonprofit organizations can advance a social justice mission.

Once I began researching master’s degree programs, I quickly recognized that I didn’t know which city or state I wanted to end up in after graduation. To give myself some solid options, I felt it would be the most strategic for me to attend a school in the northeast that would allow me to build a network close to the major city centers of Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. Massachusetts has a strong reputation for its education quality and academic rigor, so I focused my search on Massachusetts schools that offered tuition assistance to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and AmeriCorps alumni. This of course meant that I would be starting over again in a new city. The Heller School appealed to me, in particular, because it attracts such a large population of National Service program alumni, including folks who served in City Year, Teach for America, AmeriCorps, and Peace Corps. I knew that regardless of who ended up being a part of my cohort, I could easily make a community among the other National Service alumni.

In my classes at The Heller School, I learned about the management of mission-driven organizations and worked through case studies that helped me better understand the dynamics that I had witnessed as an AmeriCorps VISTA Member. My courses at The Heller School helped me understand what it takes for mission-driven organizations to become sustainable and they can avoid management pitfalls that endanger their ability to carry out their mission. As someone who is on a trajectory to enter the federal workforce, I am excited to take the strategies I’ve learned for advancing social justice and strengthening mission-driven organizations into this space to ensure that federal programs can better partner with and support the many local organizations doing the work on the ground to serve the American people.

Event recap: Waffles and Wellness

May 9, 2023 / cmcquarters / 0 Comments

Calah McQuarters, MBA’23

Why did Waldo go to therapy? To find himself. HA! Just trying something different to start today’s blog…did you laugh? No? Well, that’s fine. But that joke does lead us into what we are talking about today!

Last month, Brandeis Counseling Center and the office of Equity Inclusion and Diversity teamed up to put on a Self-Care series. The series hosted Waffles and Wellness on Thursdays and Mindful Mondays. Being that it was midterm month, I had no intention of stopping in at any of these events. I needed every minute of my day for tests and papers! But one fateful Thursday, the smell of waffles drifted into my classroom and all at once, my classmates began to look around wondering where that beautiful smell was coming from (that’s how they lure you in, free food). I had coffee and breakfast already that morning, so I wasn’t too hungry, but after class, I chose to follow my friends to a nearby study room where Waffles and Wellness was just getting started and sat down waiting for my friends to finish eating. I wasn’t looking to talk about wellness or really to talk at all. I was just patiently waiting.

Now let me pause here and say I LOVE therapy. I am a big advocate for everyone to do at least a few sessions every couple of years just to check in and make sure they are in a good place mentally. I did therapy during my undergrad years, and it was truly lifesaving. So, by no means am I opposed to the practice of therapy, but on this particular day, mental wellness was not at the top of my to do list. Now let’s get back to the story.

As I sat waiting patiently, watching waffles, both gluten-free and gluten-filled, being made fresh and passed out, Heller’s community therapist, Roxann, began going around the room presenting a deck of note cards for students to pick from. Each card had a definition for mental wellness. For example, the first card read “Mental wellness is taking a break”. Again, this was smack dab in the middle of midterm season, so I wasn’t the only one to chuckle after this card was read aloud. Roxann sensing the overwhelming rejection of this definition began asking those who were present questions and explained how essential stepping away from work was to overall productivity and success of any assignment. After this, another student picked from the deck and read aloud “Mental wellness is going to therapy”. Again, I chuckled, but this time, I was the only one… And if you didn’t know, laughing at going to therapy in front of a therapist is the fastest way to find yourself as a new client of that therapist, willing or unwilling (I’m kidding, sort of). Recognizing that I was the only one that laughed, I immediately looked up to lock eyes with Roxann, knowing that I wasn’t going to get away without sharing the reason behind my reaction.

Again, I want to pause. Please don’t think I was pressured to share or even be in the space. I was very much a willing participant. But there is something about being in an open space, with open people that compels you to be open too. And that was the point of the series, creating an environment for people to come together, share, learn how to care for each other and ourselves better, and get the necessary tools to practice every day. But once more, back to the story.

I won’t divulge everything that was discussed after that moment, but I will tell you that before I left that room, I sent Roxann an email requesting to start sessions with her the next week. Just like that, following people who were following the smell of waffles landed me back in therapy. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

That’s my story of Waffles and Wellness. As I tend to leave tidbits of advice in my blogs, I will leave you with this. Stay away from waffles. Kidding! You are never too busy to take care of you. Never.

Conference Recap: ECOSOC Youth Forum 2023

May 4, 2023 / bruscitti / 0 Comments

Brielle Ruscitti, MS GHPM/MA SID’24

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York City, hosted by the Economic and Social Council. This conference was dedicated to youth engagement with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and accelerating the continued recovery from COVID-19. There were both in person and online events which made this conference really accessible to attend in person and remotely. Something unique about this conference is that it gives youth the space to showcase their abilities, emphasize the need for youth engagement and call on leaders to continue to provide youth a larger share of responsibility as this generation is already shaping the future and want to expand their opportunity to participate.

I attended this conference with my peers that I work with at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. My peers on the Global Schools team and I hosted a side event focused on the use of partnerships and featured speakers from across the global who are passionate about education and developing interconnected partnerships to advance the SDGs. I was able to learn more about effective partnerships, how to create lasting partnerships and the importance of partnerships not only in education but the SDGs overall.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I attended the conference in person which was great to network, attend side events and larger forum style events. While the first day was intimidating, after I found my way around, I was able to sit in on a session about human rights and environmental justice. This event was great to see how different aspects of our lives share so many common themes and that there is not a single solution to many of the issues that we face as a society. The sessions on Thursday focused on youth recommendations moving forward and how different agencies can facilitate this progress.

My favorite part of the conference was not only getting to hear all the great work that is happening to advance the SDGs and youth involvement but also hearing young individuals calling for more actions on the SDGs with clear plans of what they want to achieve.

I had a great time getting to know other youth who are involved with the SDGs, networking and getting to know my colleagues better. I hope to be able to attend future conferences fully in-person again as we return to this modality after COVID-19. I left the conference feeling excited to continue my work through my internship and for future possibilities.

Where Can Heller Take You? Andy Mendez’ Answer

May 2, 2023 / amendez / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

As of today, I have two more weeks of classes left and just five weeks until graduation. It’s hard to believe that I’ll be closing the book on graduate school. It feels like I just got here! While I’m sad to be leaving this community, I am very excited for what is ahead. This week, I was named a 2023 David L. Boren Fellow. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this program, the Boren Fellowship is a study abroad program that aims to provide foreign language training and cultural exchange opportunities for students pursuing a career in the federal government.

Boren has been on my radar for years. When I was first looking into graduate degree programs, part of my criteria were programs that would position me well for post-graduate opportunities abroad. Boren is a well-known opportunity among Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). It came up a couple of times when I was still serving in Morocco and was put back on my radar when I started to research schools that were part of the Coverdell scholarship program for RPCVs.

Boren is distinct from other study abroad programs in its focus on preparing Fellows for careers in national security. In fact, one of the conditions of the scholarship is a one-year service requirement with the federal government after completion of the Fellowship program. Unlike Fulbright and the Critical Language Scholarship (which I applied to and was named an Alternate for), Boren has a specific career pathway and is used as a talent pipeline for federal agencies looking to hire students with advanced degrees, language skills, and international experience.

Applying to the Boren Fellowship program was, for me, an 8-month long process. I consider June 2022 the start of the process for me because that was when I began researching language programs. For context, there are basically two “flavors” of Boren Fellowship programs. You can either apply for a self-designed program or you can apply to one of the Regional Flagship Language Initiatives, which are pre-designed programs for African, Indonesian, South Asian, and Turkish languages. After speaking with Gabriella Lanzi and Phillip Aitken, two Heller recipients of the Boren Fellowship and 2022 graduates of the COEX program, I was pretty convinced that I wanted to pursue a self-designed program. With my past experiences in Morocco and Egypt, I figured it made sense to apply for an Arabic language program that could take me from my current intermediate level to an advanced level.

I had a really hard time trying to decide if I should study an Arabic dialect or if I should study standard Arabic. If I chose to study the dialect I was most familiar with, the only country option I had was Morocco. If I chose to study standard Arabic, I had many more country options, but would essentially have to start from the beginner level. I also struggled with other aspects of the language study plan proposal. I needed to be able to provide details on the cost breakdown of the coursework, books, and my preferred housing situation.

Aside from the language study plan, I also had to secure letters of recommendation and write two essays: one on the national security implications of my chosen language and country and the other on my plans for pursuing a career in federal service. For these essays, I was in ongoing conversation with the directors of the Academic Fellowships department and the staff at Heller’s Career Development Center, who helped me edit my essays and refine my arguments. Since I already had begun forming relationships with the director of the Sustainable International Development program and the director of the Social Impact MBA program, I let both of these professors know that I was pursuing this opportunity. In previous assignments I had submitted to these professors, I had focused on international issues, so they both were very familiar with my previous professional background and my aspirations to go abroad post-graduation. This meant that when it came time to ask for recommendations, I already had professors who knew me very well and who were invested in my professional growth.

As the end of fall semester was nearing last year, I began to notice more and more cracks in my Arabic language study plan proposal. I realized that the maximum time I could spend in the Boren program was still less than half of the time I spent learning and speaking Arabic with the Peace Corps in Morocco. I didn’t have a strong enough argument for how Boren would help me learn a language I already had a strong foundation in. For the national security essay, I also found it hard to articulate the importance of focusing on Morocco, given the current administration’s foreign policy stance away from the Middle East and towards China, Russia, and Iran.

For this reason, I completely scrapped my self-designed Arabic study plan and switched to the Turkish Flagship Language Initiative (TURFLI) in Azerbaijan. Due to Azerbaijan’s proximity to Russia in the north and Iran in the south, I was able to make a national security argument about the country’s relevance to US foreign policy, while also making a connection to the core coursework I had done on economic and business development and the elective coursework I had completed on conflict and coexistence. I was also able to argue that my prior experience studying Arabic (a harder language than Turkish by the federal government’s own standard) was proof that I could succeed in the Boren program.

While I will never know for sure what factors led the selection committee to choose me for this award, I have a feeling that it was partly because of my essay on career plans. Due to the service requirement, the Boren Fellowship really wants to attract people who are serious about a future career in the federal government. For this essay, I wrote about my plans to pursue the Presidential Management Fellows program which, two months before I submitted my Boren application, named me a Semi-Finalist. I believe having gone through and made it to the first round of the PMF process convinced the committee that I was not only serious, but also qualified. My success in the PMF program, as is the case with Boren, was a direct result of support I received from Heller’s Career Development Center, Brandeis’s Academic Fellowships department, and my professors.

As a recipient of the Boren Fellowships, I will be studying Turkish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from June to August and then at the Azerbaijan University of Languages in Baku from August to December. It’s a relief to reach graduation knowing exactly what my next steps are and to know that I’m pursuing the exact international opportunity I learned about way back when I was a brand new Peace Corps Volunteer seven years ago.

Neh Meh’s Favorite Class at Heller: Political Ecology and Development

April 27, 2023 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Neh Meh, MA SID/COEX’24

As I write this, we are two weeks away from finishing the Spring semester. Some of us are graduating, while others still have a semester or a year to go. Congratulations in advance to all of those who are graduating this year!

I’ll be one of the students graduating this year, and as I reflected on my student experiences at Heller, I thought about my learning experience in Political Ecology and Development class a lot. The course has taught me to look beyond surface issues and zoom in on issues in a way that allows me to think deeply about them and to question them critically. It taught me to look at things through a political ecologist lens, which means always being critical of the resolutions to world problems. The course covers topics such as environmental crisis, indigenous rights, famine, neoliberalism, capital disaster, etc. These topics are all relevant issues in the present day, as they continue to pose threats to our society.

While the resolutions to these presented issues may seem obvious, I have discovered the need to dissect each of the layers contributing to each issue. For example, when we hear the word “environmental crisis”, we immediately think about the carbon emissions and forest degradation that contribute to the crisis. As a result, we are likely to blame the growth of the population and developing countries for it. While these are all valid concerns about contributing factors to the environmental crisis, we must question who is coming up with those notions of the environmental crisis, and who really is contributing to the environmental crisis. For example, we should ask, “Who really contributes to carbon emissions and waste ?” The class provided different case studies that show the power of elites and capitalists in framing the issues in such a way that tends to blame the vulnerable population from the Global South while maximizing profits.

For example, many scientists believe cutting down trees and farming harms the environment, and in turn, many conservation agendas displace the regions’ indigenous population, demean their culture, and leave them in a more vulnerable place. But in some conservation efforts happening in Africa, we can see that there’s a better alternative: villages who engage in agriculture have healthy forests growing surrounding the villages. Thus, cutting down trees for farming under certain circumstances can actually be a good thing. Indeed, it benefits the environment as it is multiplying the forest. The government and outsiders play a critical role in deciding what is “good” or “bad” for the environment while neglecting the expertise of the villagers who have been farming for many decades.

The learning techniques and critical thinking associated with studying issues beyond the surface level are crucial for the learning process. In addition, it prepares you to become a person aligned with social justice and engage in work that eliminates inequality. Therefore, I highly recommend you take this class, if you ever want to experience a course that constantly challenges you to think critically and prepares you to become a real problem solver in the injustice system.

Finding your Summer Internship: The Final Steps

April 25, 2023 / bruscitti / 0 Comments

Brielle Ruscitti, MS GHPM/MA SID’24

The final weeks of the semester are upon us! It’s crazy how fast the semester has gone by and I can’t believe many of us are just a few weeks away from graduation or starting a new job or internship. Throughout this semester, I have discussed the many different steps that go into finding a new job or internship and I hope those tips have been helpful; feel free to go back and read those blogs if you haven’t already! I wanted to talk about the last step in the process after you have done all the hard work of crafting your applications, applying, and interviewing, which is to review your offer, final job description and making sure you are a good fit with your future colleagues.

In the interview process, if you were able to meet the team, make sure you can see yourself working well with the group and enjoying the work. I think we can all attest to the importance of a good work environment and a supportive team, as this can increase your job satisfaction and help build your network. It might be beneficial once you accept your job offer to set up an introductory meeting with your new team to start getting to know each other and see how you will fit into the team dynamic. Learning about the company culture, work life balance, typical working hours and the potential commute time are important considerations outside your actual job description that you should consider. I also think it is important to evaluate your career goals at this stage and opportunities for growth that this job can offer.

You should also be sure to review your offer letter closely and ask any follow up questions prior to committing as to avoid surprises later. I recommend meeting or discussing with another trusted individual, if possible, to review things such as the offer letter and job description as they might have more questions that you haven’t yet considered. This has personally helped me as they also might offer some grounded outside perspective and advice to help you evaluate if the job is a good fit and helps you progress towards your goals. Also, if you are applying to a full time position, I advise reviewing the company benefits to make sure they align with your needs. I hope this blog series has been helpful and I wish everyone the best of luck in the job hunt!