‘Career Development’ Articles at Heller Admissions Blog, Page 2

Tag: Career Development (page 2 of 5)

Heller 2023 Winter Highlights

Every quarter, my colleagues in Heller Communications put out a new issue of the Heller magazine, and at the risk of sounding like a bit of a dweeb, I always read it cover to cover. Although I would say that Heller is better than a lot of workplaces at fostering community, there’s always so much going on that it’s hard to keep up with what everyone else in the building is up to. The Heller Magazine always does a great job highlighting interesting stories from students, alumni, faculty, and even giving a bit of Heller history. Some of my favorite articles from issues past include Beyond “Do no harm”, The Best Lessons I Learned at Heller: Alumni share stories about their favorite professors, and 2020 asks us: If not now, when?.

When I came into the office on Tuesday, I was so excited to see the Winter 2023 issue in my mailbox, and have spent the last few days reading it cover to cover. You can find the full accessible PDF here, but I wanted to highlight some of my favorite articles from this issue.

Championing Social Justice – Although all of this article, which focuses on the initiatives that Interim Dean Maria Madison has implemented since stepping into the role last summer, I though the section that focuses on Heller graduates’ career outcomes was particularly interesting. Of Heller graduating class this year, an impressive 98% were employed, pursuing graduate studies, or had received competitive fellowships within six months of collecting their Heller diplomas. Our Interim Assistant Dean of Career Development, Jasmine Waddell, attributes this in part to the connections students forge while at Heller, ““The entire community is dedicated to advancing the professional development and employment outcomes for our extraordinary students. It’s not just our office — faculty in all seven programs bring in employers as guest speakers to connect the academic content to career opportunities.” In my role in admissions, I often find that many students are interested in taking classes and even whole programs online, but I think that really ignores a crucial aspect of graduate school: the ability to forge connections. As someone who earned a Master’s degree through an in-person program and is currently enrolled in an online program: an online program simply cannot compare to an in-person program when it comes to expanding your network, and I think this article really underscores something I knew but hadn’t articulated to myself: how crucial forming real world connections is to getting ahead.

Stand-out quote: “Waddell’s team runs a wealth of programs, both virtual and in person, designed to connect students with potential employers. There’s an annual career fair, now offered virtually, and a Career Trek to Washington, D.C., among other initiatives. Through the MBA Board Fellows Program, MBA students are invited to serve as nonvoting members of nonprofit boards, giving them hands-on experience and a rare window into the inner workings of organizations.

The Power of Girls’ Education – This article immediately caught my eye as a graduate of a women’s college, and it didn’t disappoint. Learning about how Beatriz Pleités, MA SID’23, spent her practicum working as a development and communications intern at SEGA Girls’ Secondary School in Morogoro, Tanzania, was so interesting– and how amazing that she learned Swahili during an internship! This article gets a lot of points from me for the feel good factor, and also the adorable photos of the children at the school.

Stand-out quote: “I come from a developing country myself, but when one of the students sought my advice after her parents asked her to get married, I realized how different my adolescence was from theirs,” Beatriz says.

Yuqi Wang, MBA/MPP’20 : Fostering equity in Kendall Square’s business center – Kendall Square is one of my favorite areas in Boston, but I’ve never thought of all the work that goes into making the neighborhood so charming. Reading this article about the work that one of our recent MBA/MPP graduates does in her role for the Kendal Square Association was so interesting. Yuqi leads programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, corporate responsibility and community impact, including the Inclusion Drives Innovation program, which focuses on helping participants develop the tools to improve intersectionality. It’s always so interesting to learn about the impactful and interesting work that students go on to do after the graduate, and Yuqi is certainly no exception!

Stand-out quote: ““It all comes down to power at the end of the day, and programming and policy are two sides of the same coin,” Wang says. “When you’re trying to think of how [you] can be a change agent on an individual level, there is a lot of potential in programs to push people and companies forward to change policies. I find that very fulfilling and very cool.”

Facing Your Capstone Presentation

January 12, 2023 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Neh Meh, MA SID/COEX’24

Most graduate students are busy finishing their classes, dealing with projects, and preparing for graduation. Most importantly, many of our graduate students are preparing the requirement that essentially allows them to walk in the graduation ceremony and obtain their degree: their a capstone project. Many of the graduate programs at Heller also require students to do an internship, practicum, field research, or thesis paper. The good thing is that the Executive Director of the Global Programs at Heller is very flexible with whatever you choose, making our graduate life much easier. After completing the capstone project, students must present it in person or virtually.

However, before we jump to talking about presenting the capstone project, you should know that students must take many different steps before they’re ready to present their capstone project, and that those steps could vary for each student. As a dual degree student majoring in Conflict Resolution and Coexistence and Sustainable International Development, I will share my experiences and journey in how and why I chose to do what I did and what I learned from it. It was during my second semester in graduate school, around February 2022 that I started thinking about different internships for my practicum. An ideal timeline is like this: completing an internship or any project during the summer and writing a report about my internship experiences in the fall semester. So, I started thinking about different organizations, researching their missions and visions to see if they aligned with my interest, and began sorting through the opportunities. Then, I thought of the Jesuit Refugee Service, a non-profit organization in Thailand that serves refugees. I remember the organization’s involvement in refugee education, especially for the Karenni (if you have not heard about Karenni, it is an ethnic group from Myanmar). I contacted the organization’s director and shared my background and interest. He then asked for my resume, and after that, he agreed to let me work with the organization over the summer on Peace and Reconciliation’s peacebuilding project. The Jesuit Refugee Service’s peacebuilding essentially focuses on rebuilding relationships and building the capacity to face difficulties.

I spent three months in Thailand researching the peacebuilding project and organized a training centered on peacebuilding through education. I utilized education to build peace by educating the Karenni and Karenni refugees about ways to tackle conflicts and skills that enable them to create the right relationships between themselves. While interning with JRS, I completed my peacebuilding project called “Peacebuilding through Education”. After completing my three-month project, I returned to Heller to continue my Sustainable International Development degree. As a SIDCO, I had the option to present in May; however, since my project was funded by the peace award from Marice Kapf Hahn, I had to present my completed project before the year ended.

I’ll admit that this timeline was less than ideal and at times I felt rushed, or felt like did not have enough time to put everything together, since I was also working on writing the report/thesis paper. However, one very helpful thing for me was to have a daily schedule planned out every week. For example, I set aside 30 minutes on Sunday to plan for the week, including what I wanted to accomplish each day. As a result, I managed to finish both the thesis paper and presentation in two months! Looking back, it was a wild ride. I could not believe I had managed to complete a 40-page of report/thesis paper and 15 slides of the presentation within two months, but the experience was worth it. I also learned to manage my stress and time and prioritize what’s important and not important.

If you thought that was a lot, remember that I still had to present the presentation I had prepared. For the actual presentation, you only need to put together seven Powerpoint slides, present for ten minutes, and give ten minutes for a question and answer session. I was very nervous about my presentation, but a little practice before the actual presentation was very helpful, so my advice is to practice presenting the day before the actual presentation.

Now that I finished my capstone project, I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I am excited to finish up my last semester and graduate!

The Summer Internship, Part Two

December 8, 2022 / bruscitti / 0 Comments

Brielle Ruscitti, MS GHPM/MA SID’24

In my last post, I started talking about how I was starting my summer internship search, and now I will update on how the process is going and what other steps I have taken. I previously mentioned the importance of the Heller School’s resources, specifically career services. Over the past couple of weeks, I have met with career services to talk about how to strategize my internship search, resources available and had my resume and cover letter reviewed.

Having a reviewed and ready to go template resume and cover letter is extremely useful for when I find an internship that I would like to apply to. I can easily customize my materials to fit the job description and confidently submit my application. I have been using Handshake and LinkedIn most frequently to find positions applying to ones that I am most interested in. I have learned that using filters on Handshake can be really useful for searching for specific position types, durations and paid vs unpaid opportunities. LinkedIn is useful for looking at specific organizations you are interested in that are hiring and even tells you how many other applicants there are. Additionally, remember to keep your LinkedIn profile updated, this is not only a great way to keep track of your accomplishments but also LinkedIn is great for networking. One of the biggest takeaways that I have had so far is that every organization tends to have a different hiring timeline, so some agencies and organizations might be hiring spring intern and some might be looking for summer interns. Make sure to take your time and realize that some of the positions you might be looking for aren’t being hired for yet.

Another great resource that I have explored is information session and events that Heller is hosting. Information sessions, specifically about the practicum search is a great place to get your questions answered. I attended a session last week hosted by Mary Poor and learned so much about what previous students have done for their practicum, and what is required for the Heller school, such as forms, and visa information, if applicable. Additionally, there were a number of resources shared at this event that I am definitely going to be using going forward in my search. This event was also super helpful as there were current and previous students present to talk about their practicum experience, and share what finding and completing the practicum was like. If there are any other events that are like this in the future I will be sure to attend.

In my next post, I will be sharing some interview tips and reflections on some of my interview experiences, so stay tuned!

Career Center Resources

November 15, 2022 / amendez / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

On the first floor of the Heller School building, you’ll find a couple of things. This includes the Heller Admissions Office, the Dean’s Office, and the Career Development Center. The Career Center can be an excellent resource in your graduate journey – if you know what resources exist and how to use them. Here is my advice for how to make the most of resources at the Career Center.

Schedule Mock Interviews

At this point in the semester, my cohort members and I are fully in the job and fellowship search process. Many of my classmates are seeking consulting roles and these kinds of jobs have a very particular interview format, which usually involves completing and presenting a mock case. If you’ve never had this kind of interview before, it can be very intimidating and confusing. Scheduling a mock interview with the Career Center is a great way to practice and get comfortable with this format before you do the real thing. I’m currently in the running for the Presidential Management Fellows program and the interview for this focuses heavily on behavioral and situational interviewing. Having a mock interview with career staff helped me practice the STAR method response format. I generally struggle with deciding which experience is most compelling for which question. Career Center staff gave me solid feedback that helped me determine which of my anecdotes were best suited to answer the questions I’d likely be asked.

Attend Informational Sessions

The Career Center offers several information sessions a month, all with different focuses. The three types of sessions I’ve found most helpful are: talks with Heller alumni, overviews of fellowship programs, and webinars with employers or professionals in the sector I’m interested in. By attending sessions with Heller alumni, I’ve learned a lot about what resources exist on campus for students and how best to maximize my time as a student. Heller alumni also talk about how they positioned themselves for their next opportunity post-graduation. As a graduate student, there are a ton of fellowships that you may qualify for and that provide funding for language study, research, and professional development both in the US and abroad. Attending these situations is a great way to get a sense of which opportunities you may qualify for and to learn how to draft a competitive application. Lastly, employer sessions are a great way to network with professionals in your field of interest and learn about potential internship or full-time roles they might be recruiting for.

Read the Newsletter

The Career Development Center sends out a weekly email newsletter. This newsletter shares upcoming networking events as well as active job postings. Even if you are not actively job or internship searching, it’s a good idea to briefly glance at the opportunities listed. I like to scan the qualifications sector for postings that look relevant. This gives me a sense of what employers are looking for and has helped me tailor my jobs and extracurriculars to better develop these competencies. The newsletter includes both events happening at Heller and in Greater Boston. The Heller events are normally doing the lunch hour and over Zoom, which is very accessible. The events in Boston are usually in the evenings when most people don’t have classes. Attending these events is a great way to practice your networking skills and interact with your cohort outside of a classroom setting.

Evaluate Job Offers

Salary negotiation can feel scary even for students with a lot of full-time job experience. This can be even tougher if you are evaluating multiple job offers at once. Sitting down with a Career Advisor can help you think through the best ways to position yourself in the negotiation process and can also help you identify other types of benefits you may be able to negotiate either instead of, or in addition to, salary.

Overall, the Career Center is not a resource you want to put on the shelf until a few panicked weeks before graduation. The resources at the Career Development Center are designed to support students throughout all stages of their graduate school career.

Social Entrepreneurship at Heller

November 3, 2022 / amendez / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

Even if you are not in the Social Impact MBA program, Heller students can benefit from participation in social entrepreneurship initiatives both at the Heller School and the wider Brandeis community. Social entrepreneurship events are a great form of experiential learning. They offer the chance to network outside of your cohort and provide a real-world forum for applying course concepts. I’d like to highlight the social entrepreneurship opportunities I’ve enjoyed the most.

The Heller Social Impact Startup Challenge

This is an annual event in the fall semester planned almost entirely by current students. This three-day event brings together Heller students from all programs to form teams, develop their ideas with the help of mentors, and present their business concepts before a panel of judges – many of whom are Boston-area entrepreneurs. I joined this competition in my first semester, which allowed me to apply the concepts I was learning from Financial Accounting, as well as Leadership & Organizational Development. I was still very new to the Heller community, so this event also gave me the chance to meet new people and form connections. I originally came to Heller just for the MA in Sustainable International Development program but was encouraged by alumni to add the MBA. After completing the Startup Challenge, I knew I had made the right decision.

SPARK

The SPARK program is run by Brandeis Innovation. In the fall, SPARK accepts applications for its pitch competition, known as SPARKTank. First prize and People’s Choice Award winners in the Heller Startup Challenge receive streamlined entrance into the competition. The SPARK competition differs from the Heller Startup Challenge in that it is open to Brandeis faculty, staff, and students. Judges have innovation as a top criteria. The pitch time is much shorter than the Heller Startup Challenge, so my team really had to challenge ourselves to be focused, specific, and deliberate about how we communicated our idea. Winning teams from SPARK automatically join the SPARK startup incubator. The incubator happens over spring semester. Teams meet weekly for workshops that help them hone in on topics like competitive advantage, customer discovery, and revenue generation. My favorite thing about SPARK was the cohort aspect. Our cohort included teams from the International Business School, a professor in the Asian Studies Department, as well as first and second year Heller MBA students. I learned so much from being able to hear what other teams were working on and what challenges they were working through.

Courses in Social Entrepreneurship

In addition to events, Heller students can also engage in social entrepreneurship through coursework. Students have the option of two courses – Global Social Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation – both taught by the MBA Program Director, Carole Carlson. Professor Carlson has recently authored an entire textbook with case studies on mission-driven ventures. In the spring semester, she teaches the half-semester course on Global Social Entrepreneurship, which highlights examples of social impact businesses around the globe. I really appreciated how the class encouraged us to be skeptical and question if everything that is labeled a social venture is in fact truly mission-driven. The course also emphasizes that just because a social impact is taking place, mission-driven ventures still must have robust revenue models and solid business plans to be viable. In this class, I was introduced to essential business tools for lean startups, including the Business Model Canvas and the theory of change. In this course, students actually form teams, develop a business idea, and present on their business idea as their final project. My team presented on the idea of an eco-grocery store in Bhutan that would reduce waste and create jobs for urban youth. The fall semester course, Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation, dives even deeper into these concepts and presents students with more domestic case studies. Other topics covered include competitive advantage, scaling, and financing social ventures.

If you are even the slightest bit curious or interested in entrepreneurship, I encourage you to dip your toes in and take advantage of these opportunities!

The Summer Internship Part One

October 27, 2022 / bruscitti / 0 Comments

Brielle Ruscitti, MS GHPM/MA SID’24

We are about halfway through the semester and while spooky season is fun, the spookiest part is starting my search for a summer internship. As a student in the dual degree (Sustainable International Development and Global Health Policy and Management), students must complete a summer practicum, which essentially is an internship. Students in this program are responsible for findings their own summer employment. In this and future posts, I will take you through how I am beginning my search and how the application process goes throughout the semester. I hope that for future readers this makes the process easier to understand and maybe gives you a place to start your own plan and internship search.

Step One: Look into the resources available and get familiar with them. Heller has an incredible resource in its staff which help students not only search for their practicum but also help develop your application materials such as your resume and cover letter. I been using resources such as Handshake and LinkedIn which can help you begin to get an idea of types of internships, deadlines, and different companies and organizations to work with.

Step Two: Gather and update your application materials. I started this week by dusting my cover letter and updating it to use for an internship application and made sure my resume was up to date. This makes the application process much easier as your materials are ready to go, and I can easily add position specific information to my cover letter and resume to make sure my application is submitted on time. I also made sure to reach out to previous or current professors to see if they can write letters of recommendation. This is especially important because you want to make sure they have ample time for what they need to write.

Step Three: Begin the search. This is the most daunting part: there are so many to look through on a number of different websites and platforms, the whole thing becomes overwhelming almost instantly. So far I’m using a couple different strategies to make the searching less overwhelming. I started by checking both Handshake and LinkedIn for a set amount of time and used a specific set of filters or search terms to find positions that I would be interested in. I make sure to save the positions I am interested in so I can set time aside later to apply. I have also signed up for some newsletters, both from Heller and other organizations, that post internship openings. I read those carefully and look into the organization hiring to ensure I want to apply. This process has just started and I am sure I will have feedback for myself.

My search and applications have just begun, so stay tuned to read as my process continues.

MBA Extracurriculars: The Board Fellows Program

October 25, 2022 / amendez / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

As of right now, less than two months remain in my tenure as a Heller MBA Board Fellow and the 2023 cohort is actively being recruited from among the ranks of first-year MBAs. In the Board Fellow program, MBA students are matched with nonprofit organizations and sit on their Board of Directors as a non-voting member for 12 months. I had the great fortune of getting matched with Bikes Not Bombs, a youth development organization that uses the bicycle as a vehicle for social change. I entered this program to get a better understanding of nonprofit governance, to connect with a local organization that does programming in my professional area of interest, to expand my professional network, and to increase my leadership skills. Here are my tips for maximizing this opportunity!

Join a Committee

Both corporate and nonprofit boards organize themselves into relevant subcommittees. Common ones include Finance, Executive, Governance, and Fundraising. At Bikes Not Bombs, I knew early on that I wanted to join the Governance committee. This committee has been focused on board member recruitment, engagement, and succession planning. Prior to coming to Brandeis, I had been involved in the recruitment, onboarding, support, and offboarding of AmeriCorps volunteers and was curious what recruitment looked like for a nonprofit board. Joining a subcommittee helped me get a firsthand insight into this process, while also allowing me to connect with a smaller subgroup of board members who I met with on a monthly basis (as opposed to the other board members, which I saw at our bi-monthly full board meetings).

Volunteer or Help Plan Events

Many nonprofits have annual flagship events that they are known for. These events are usually focused on fundraising and sharing the progress the organization has made that year. Bikes Not Bombs hosts two big fundraisers – the Building Momentum Breakfast and the Bike-A-Thon. For this year’s Bike-A-Thon, I volunteered to help run registration for teams biking in the event. Volunteering was a great way for me to meet key staff in the organization and hear from veteran participants their reflections on what this event means for them and the surrounding Jamaica Plain community.

Have One-on-Ones with Board Members

Each person on the board (unless they are retired) is an active professional. At least 4 people on Bikes Not Bombs board were alumni of Heller’s MBA program! Meeting one-on-one for a virtual coffee chat was a great way to get to know them better, learn more about their career trajectory, and hear about what motivated them to get involved on the board. One of my favorite one-on-ones was when I had the opportunity to talk to Bikes Not Bomb’s capacity building consultant. From this conversation, I learned a lot about what it takes to improve board governance.

As you can see, there are many ways to get involved beyond just attending board meetings. Many of my peers in the Board Fellows program have also taken on special projects related to committee work and many of them have found internships through their connections on the board. Nonprofit boards really appreciate the perspective of younger professionals and many boards are looking to fill certain skill gaps which Heller MBA students come equipped with. I’ve really enjoyed my Board Fellow experience thus far and I look forward to finishing strong!

Andy’s Advice to Maximizing your Time at Professional Conferences

October 11, 2022 / amendez / 0 Comments

Andy Mendez, MBA/SID’23

One huge benefit of Heller’s location in Waltham, MA is its proximity to Boston. Graduate school is not only about coursework, but about professional development and networking building. Boston is home to local chapters of many nationally recognized professional associations, including Reaching Out MBA, the National Black MBA Association, the Association of Latino Professionals for America, and the National Association of Asian American Professionals.

Thanks to the generous support of the Graduate Student Association and Heller’s Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, seven other Social Impact MBA candidates and alumni and I had the opportunity to attend the 44th annual National Black MBA Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The schedules at these conferences are typically jam-packed with many workshops, expos, and receptions that run concurrently. As a result, it can be hard to know what to prioritize if you don’t go in with a game plan. Here’s what I learned about how to maximize your time at conferences.

Research Employers Beforehand

The National Black MBA Conference held a two day Career Expo from 9 to 5 on Thursday and Friday with 200+ employers. We realized pretty quickly that it was physically impossible to try and talk to representatives at all 200 companies, especially since there were workshops and receptions happening throughout the day that we were also very interested in attending. Instead, we needed to approach this strategically. I used my time in the airport and on the plane to review the list of exhibiting employers and narrow it down to the top 20 that I was interested in, with the intention of talking to 10 employers each day of the expo. In reality, I ended up speaking with around 13 employers in total. Conversations with companies where there was clearly no alignment took less than 5 minutes. In contrast, my conversations with companies that were a good fit took around 20 minutes, which meant, in an hour, I had only talked to three. In hindsight, I should have reviewed the employer list a lot sooner, and that way I could have printed more tailored resumes to hand to each employer.

Scout out the Space

Each day of the expo, I began by doing one big round of the space to identify who was present and where the employers I was interested in were located. This is actually how I realized that there was a rotation, and not every employer was present every day, but rather, were there for a specific timeblock. I ended up missing two employers of interest because I didn’t realize this sooner.

Leverage Technology

One thing that helped a lot was having LinkedIn downloaded as an app on my phone. In the app version, I was able to pull up a QR code that employers could scan and immediately add me to their networks. The second day of the expo, I realized it was better for me to scan the employer’s code, that way I could screenshot their profiles and have an easy list of people to follow up with post-conference. If you’re not big on LinkedIn, or if you forgot to bring physical copies of your resume, you could also consider downloading the HiHello app. This app allows you to create multiple profiles that you can send to others via QR code. Having multiple profiles allows you to tailor information to specific audiences. For example, maybe you have a graduate student profile that uses your school email and a job search profile that uses your personal email. I’ve had friends who had a separate profile for themselves as business owners. On HiHello, you can include a link to the social media of your choice and to a virtual company of your resume.

Final Thoughts

When attending conferences, it’s important to remember that you can’t see or do it all. Researching the schedule, employers, and (if possible) attendees will help you identify the best places to focus your time and energy. The Heller Career Development Center newsletter, student working groups, and alumni are some of the best sources for identifying conferences that are a good fit for your academic and professional interests. Happy networking!

My Summer Internship Story

September 13, 2022 / rclark / 0 Comments

Ronunique Clark, MPP’23

“Work all winter so you can have fun all summer” or whatever the kids are saying nowadays… was not my experience this summer! Since my sophomore year of high-school, I’ve challenged myself to obtain an internship during my summer breaks. Internships grant students the opportunity to showcase their soft skills, but also gives the chance to learn new skills. It provides the opportunity to gain real life work experience that is transferable to your future career goals and even in the classroom.

For the Master of Public Policy program here at Heller, it is highly recommended to do an internship over the summer for the reasons stated above and many others. This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with the Department of Revenue – Child Support Enforcement Division at the Metro office in Downtown Boston Government Center area. The Department of Revenue (DOR) in Massachusetts manages the states taxes and child support. In addition to this, DOR helps cities and towns manage their finances and administer the Underground Storage Tank program. The main focus of this agency is rulings and regulations, tax policy analysis, communications and legislative affairs.

The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) Division provides tools and services to parents who pay child support and parents and caretakers who receive child support. Child support is a way for parents to share financial responsibility for their child even though they do not live together. Even though I have previous experience in social/human services, the child support office was just a place I knew no parent wanted to be summoned too. The stereotyping around child support is that the state just wants to take your money and give it to a person that you no longer want to have any connections with whatsoever. Yet the person you no longer want to have relations with is now either the mother or father of your child or children, sealing that connection for life. So who is really at fault? Certainly not the child, so the DOR steps in. In the past year the division has allocated $2 million in compensation for children in Massachusetts.

My work was very clear, transparent, and extremely eye-opening. I worked from home Mondays and Fridays and hopped the orange line train Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. As I have stated in previous blogs, I have learned to attend new experiences with minimal preconceived notions and expectations, especially with the work I would be doing and the customers I would interact with. I was tasked with a two part summer project which required me to take a deep dive into our GMT testing process. GMT Testing in “normal people terms” is paternity testing in order to establish paternity between the child and alleged father. All parties, alleged father, mother, and child have to participate in paternity testing. The first part of the project, I spent time conducting data analysis using Excel about variations in our appointment attendance and testing result rates. I was able to provide Regional Directors with data that would help them meet their testing goals for the fiscal year. This part was daunting, to say the least, because I had minimal Excel experience beforehand but my supervisor never held that against me and trained me efficiently on how to navigate it. I wouldn’t say I am an Excel guru now but I certainly obtained good Excel skills.

For the second part of my project, I conducted a phone survey with mothers who were on TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) or formerly receiving TANF about their experiences with the GMT test process. I chose TANF mothers as my sample population because majority of child support case referrals are directly from our DTA offices. I called 90 mothers in hopes they would participate in my survey, and I received a response from 37 mothers, which, for me, was huge because I had never conducted a phone survey, and because I did not know if these women would even want to participate. I was able to gather information regarding trouble with scheduling of appointments, problems accessing the testing location, and concerns with our policies. Being able to hear these mothers stories and concerns made me feel extremely anxious, because I am a public policy student who is currently trying to break into this system. However, the system was already established in a way where all I could say to mothers who expressed concerns I was not trained for was, “I will take down your information and pass it along.” I sympathized with these mothers as a child whose mother applied to receive child support, yet rarely was given anything. I was able to present these findings in a final presentation followed by my personal recommendations to CSE regional directors who were very pleased with the results. However, I can not tell you if they will follow through with the feedback and recommendations. Maybe it will be a blog for another time? I hope!

To close out, I can say I was very proud of the work I was able to produce, the skills I was able to learn, and the people I connected with over the course of my summer. I enjoyed my work so much that I switched my concentration from Economic and Racial Equity to Child, Youth, and Family Policy (CYF). I felt that the CYF concentration would be able to provide me with the tools to that would foster a healthy development of children, youth, and families a concentration that I honestly should of started with from the begin of my graduate school journey. Better late then never, right? Excited to see what this concentration entails as I approach my final year of grad school. Thank you, DOR, for an amazing summer and thank you, Heller, for providing me with the tools to succeed in that space!

Flash Forward: What are Heller graduates doing right now?

August 16, 2022 / amandamiller / 0 Comments

Every three months, a magazine appears in my mailbox. It’s not one I subscribed to, and most of the time, I have no idea what to expect in terms of the articles inside. But it’s one that I look forward to reading: The Brandeis magazine.

If you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably heard about the Heller magazine (shout out to Heller’s amazing communications team!), but you might not realize that Brandeis puts out a magazine every quarter too. And unlike what I’m sure of the majority of recipients do (leaf through a few pages, read an article or two that catches their eye, reads the class news for their class), I can proudly say that I read each Brandeis magazine cover to cover. My favorite part, however, might not be what you’d expect. Even though I myself never attended Brandeis, and even though the articles for Brandeis magazine are always fascinated, I love the class news section.

I love it because I get a glimpse of what some of our Heller graduates are up to. You see, once students enroll, we hand them off to their program directors, professors, advisors, and program managers. Sure, a current student or even an alumni might occasionally stop by to chat with us, but for the most part, once a student is enrolled, we fall off the radar. Reading through the class news lets me know what became of the shy prospective SID student I talked to at a graduate school fair, or the PhD applicant whose statement of purpose blew me away.

Today, I thought it might be helpful to share some updates from Heller’s graduates: not so that you can catch up with them, as I do, but so you can get a sense of where you might be post-Heller.

Medani Bhandari, SID’04, is a professor and advisor to the chancellor at Gandaki University (Nepal), professor at Sumy State University (Ukraine), and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Akamai University (Hawaii, USA).

Jill Baren, MBA’19, is the 14th president (and first woman president) of Lake Forest College.

Devan Quinn, MPP’17, is director of policy at the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation.

Jeanette Takamura, PhD’85, is a professor and dean emerita of the Columbia School of Social Work, where she served as the School’s first female dean. Dr. Takamura served as the assistant secretary for aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1997 to 2001.

Javaid Iqbal Sofi, MA SID/MS GHPM’21, is a fellow at the Harvard Public Health Review.

Leandre Waldo, MBA’02, is the chief of staff for the president of Saint Michael’s College.

Emmanuel Obasuyi, MS GHPM’15, is building a mobile-first electronic health record system for healthcare providers in emerging markets, which is being piloted in Nigeria.

Michael Ames, PhD’15, is president and CEO of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Alliance, a human-service organization. He’s also the president of the Massachusetts Association of Approved Special Education Schools’ board.

Jessica Sanon, MBA’18, founded sySTEMic Flow, a nonprofit which works to break down barriers for BIPOC women who study or work in STEM fields.

Amanda Kiessel, SID’03, is the co-creator of Good Market, a marketplace commons that makes it easier to connect with social enterprises, civic organizations, and businesses working to create a better world.

Heller Admissions Blog

Tag: Career Development (page 2 of 5)

Heller 2023 Winter Highlights

Facing Your Capstone Presentation

The Summer Internship, Part Two

The Summer Internship Part One

My Summer Internship Story

Flash Forward: What are Heller graduates doing right now?

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