"My SAIS education helped"

Last week, Alex Skinner, who attended SAIS Bologna in 2009-10, described how SAIS alumni helped him in his job search once he had graduated. Today we turn the pulpit over to Catherine Morris, who, like Alex, ended up at the World Bank.

Landing a job was a challenge. But my SAIS education surely helped.

Between the poor economy and the fact I was still working part time as a research assistant at my former place of employment, finding a job was stressful. After sending out more than 100 applications and enduring a handful of unsuccessful job interviews, a small light began to flicker though the dark tunnel that was my career at the time.

Catherine Morris

One afternoon I got a call from a fellow SAISer telling me that a friend’s friend’s friend’s (all SAISers) former supervisor was looking for someone to immediately take on a short-term consultancy at the World Bank.

The scope of work focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country I had studied in depth at my job before SAIS. The job would require perfect French, English writing and editing skills (skills I had solidified at SAIS) and solid knowledge of macroeconomics and econometrics, which I had thanks to my international economics concentration and my quantitative methods and economic theory specialization at SAIS.

I got the job the next day.

While finding a job might have been challenging, the level of work I am given on a daily basis and the confidence instilled in me to do it have been very high. I am currently responsible for drafting the same document that I used at my previous job as an important reference.

I have been using my French to contribute edits to a three-volume series of books that will be published in coming weeks. While the learning curve has been steep, it is nothing I can’t handle thanks to my SAIS training.

Pleased with my performance, my supervisor continuously asks me to take on new projects. Next I will be working on analyzing data for a project using STATA, a statistical program I learned entirely at SAIS.

A SAIS degree is not an ordinary international relations master’s degree. The unique mix of economics and international relations in my curriculum ensured my education was as well-rounded as possible and my understanding of international issues as thorough as possible.

My SAIS degree means I don’t just know what is going on in the world; I know how to work with people of all backgrounds (thanks to the broad array of fellow SAIS students I have worked with). I have the skills I need to learn, adapt and grow to understand the complex concepts underlying global issues and to use that understanding to accomplish the tasks and assignments I am given.

The bottom line: I can now work alongside development experts from all over the world and contribute something that is valuable and substantial to the discussion and the work.

That doesn’t just come from the SAIS name. That comes from the SAIS education.

The best things about SAIS Bologna career trips

How does SAIS Bologna help students find the careers they want?

Career Services makes sure students can tackle the search for internships and jobs with the skills and know-how they need.

Every year the department organizes trips to European capitals where students meet movers and shakers -- many of them SAIS alumni -- learn about institutions and companies, and explore possible employment opportunities.

This year students have traveled to London, Brussels and Geneva to hear advice from alumni who were in their shoes 2, 5, 10, even 20 years ago.

In the video below, five students discuss the trips they have taken this year.



If you are reading this via email, you can see the video here.

Amina Abdiuahab

SAIS Bologna students stretch their horizons

Ethiopia, Egypt, London, Jordan, Bosnia, Brussels, Switzerland, Florence, Dubai, Spain, Genoa, Portugal, Vienna.

SAIS Bologna students are on semester break next week, and their destinations give a taste of their interests and international outlook.

I spoke to a smattering of students the other day during a break in exam week and asked them what they planned to do next week. You can hear their answers in the video below.

Some themes emerge.

Many will be going to London and Brussels on trips organized by the Career Services department. In those two cities they will meet executives and policy makers, many of them SAIS alumni who provide insight into job opportunities.

Others will be going to Sarajevo on an annual trip organized by the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development (CCSDD). We wrote a post about this last year.

Some will be exploring countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East which are within relatively easy reach by plane. Others will be staying put in Bologna -- to play in an orchestra for Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, to write a thesis, to explore summer internships.

Towards the end of the break most SAIS Bologna students will be congregating in Vienna for another annual rite -- the Austrian ball. We hope the dancers will return to Bologna with photos of this stately affair that we can share with our readers next month.

If you are reading this via email, you can see the video by clicking here.



Nelson Graves

The cost of graduate school: Investing in your future

Graduate school is an investment. The question for you is whether it is worth it.

Let's look at the costs and benefits. First, the costs.

Every graduate student, whether or not they pay tuition, shoulders an opportunity cost of foregoing job earnings for education. If you go to graduate school next year, you will not be pocketing the money you would be earning if you were working a full-time job. I cannot quantify that. Some of our students give up high-paying jobs to come to SAIS. Others not so. But every student could have chosen to work.

In most cases, the opportunity cost of studying far outstrips the price tag of school. And every student bears that cost.

Then there are the outright costs: tuition, books, living expenses, travel. We provide an estimate for incoming students. Here is the estimated budget for 2011-12 at SAIS Bologna.

If you add the opportunity and the real costs, it comes to a chunk of money. No one would deny that. The question then becomes: Is it worth it?

The return on your investment can take many forms. Some are straightforward: SAIS is a professional school, and most of our students use it as a springboard to a career in the international sphere. You may not know what job you will have when you leave SAIS, but you know the choices are exciting. Our alumni are leaders in many fields -- from the private to the public, from corporations to international organizations, from governments to NGOs.

Take my own experience. I was a high school teacher before starting SAIS. I yearned for a job on the global stage. When I finished SAIS, by virtue of my studies there, I was able to make a credible pitch to cover international finance as a journalist in Washington. That led to an unexpected but fulfilling career as a foreign correspondent.

I cite this because it is not atypical of SAIS graduates: There are doors leading to places many can only dream of.

Even before leaving SAIS, when one is at one's studies here, the experience can be gratifying. This blog has featured many students describing the learning experience in and outside the classroom, of deepening their knowledge through course work and by sharing experiences with the diverse student body.

Many readers know that one of my favorite adages is, "It's not the destination that counts but the getting there." At SAIS, the destination does count -- we want our graduates to land the jobs that inspire them. But the "getting there", or the time spent at SAIS, is also extremely satisfying. So the return on investment starts on Day One, not just at graduation.

If we continue to attract top students from around the world, it is because they recognize the benefits of the investment and also know how to make the best use of it.

How do they pay for it? Almost all students combine a mix of resources to make ends meet.

Most receive financial aid from SAIS, and in many cases the aid cuts the tuition cost substantially. For more information on financial aid and fellowships, click here.

Many land scholarships outside SAIS's control from national, international or local foundations. Some of these are well known, others less so. For a partial list of such sources, go here.

Most SAIS students have worked before starting their studies, and they may have set aside some savings to help defray the costs. Many work part-time jobs while studying. Even eight hours a week can help pay a large chunk of the rent.

Finally, some students take out loans. This is very common in the United States where subsidized student loan programs have existed for many years. But not only U.S. students. SAIS Bologna students who are citizens of EU member states are eligible to take out a fixed-rate loan from UniCredit Bank for up to 15,000 euros per year. For more information, click here.

Financing graduate school, wherever one goes, is a complex matter that extends well beyond the headline tuition figure and the size of financial aid packages. For some students it is daunting because it marks their first foray into the full complexities and challenges of personal finance.

But it can be done. You may not feel fully on top of the financial challenge at this point. My recommendation would be to think big: Why do I want to go to graduate school? How will it benefit me? Will it help me be where I want to be in 5, 10, 15 years?

Once you've tackled those questions, the nitty gritty of costs will tend to fall into place because you will see them as an investment that yields benefits far into the future.

Nelson Graves

Careers and a SAIS education go hand in hand

SAIS is a professional graduate school. We prepare students so they can enter the job force upon graduating. Most of our students are enrolled in a two-year Master of Arts in International Relations and take up jobs upon finishing.

What kinds of careers do our graduates choose? A wide variety. They go into business, government, diplomacy, NGOs, multilateral institutions, development, education -- even journalism, as I did after finishing SAIS in 1983.

We published a post last February that examined the career choices of the class of 2010. While the favorite career choices evolve over time, one thing tends to remain constant: SAIS graduates can tackle a range of challenges over their lifetimes.

(If you can believe it, one of the most popular career choices in my day was commercial banking. How boring that would appear to many graduates nowadays.)

For other posts on careers and jobs, you can explore using the search function on this blog's home page or you can click on "careers" or "jobs" under the list of labels to the right.

The Career Services offices in Bologna and Washington provide students with long-term career management skills. During pre-term in Bologna, students participated in a professional development course that laid the groundwork for their career planning over the next two years.

In the video below, we captured some of the students in the course discussing in small groups different job sectors that they had researched in advance. At the end of the video, Felix Lung, a first-year MA candidate from Germany, offers his views on career support at SAIS -- and on the role the diverse student body has on educating students.

Warning: The opening shots of the video move along very quickly before Felix's interview starts. Just to give you a taste of the teamwork in career planning here -- a point that Felix makes.



If you are reading this on email, you can see the video here.

Nelson Graves

Diversity and careers

Our recent poll gives me a chance to discuss two of SAIS Bologna's distinctive features.

The poll asked readers what they thought was best about SAIS Bologna. Here are the results:

Diverse student body - 36%

Career preparation - 26

Camaraderie - 18

Courses & faculty - 10

City of Bologna - 5

European perspective - 5

That means that more than one third of the respondents consider "diversity" to be SAIS Bologna's key asset.

"Diversity", of course, can mean different things to different people, and it can work in unpredictable ways.

(I have landed two jobs in my life in large part because I happened to be a "diverse" candidate. In one, I had an advantage over another candidate because I did not speak the language of the country where the job was located and so could ostensibly bring an impartial eye to a post that needed it. In another, I was a male applying for a job at a company where there were predominantly women, and the hiring managers wanted more gender balance. Some irony in both cases.)

I think the diversity that respondents to our poll were thinking of stems to a large extent from the range of nationalities. This year we have 43 nationalities (48 including dual passports), up from 34 last year and the largest number of nationalities in the Bologna Center's 57 years.


View SAIS Bologna 2011-12 class in a larger map

With 43 nationalities among 200 students, everyone is in a kind of minority. Even our U.S. students, who make up 44% of the class, are in a minority because they are outnumbered by non-Americans and, of course, are living in a foreign country.

This sense of being in a permanent minority is part of the SAIS Bologna learning experience. One is constantly confronted by different points of view. One's assumptions are regularly challenged. You cannot hide behind conventional wisdom because in such a place, it is neither conventional nor necessarily wisdom.

Students who thrive at SAIS enjoy learning from and about others. They are willing to give of themselves because they understand that others want to learn about them, too. It is one important reason why SAIS students are expected to participate in classes -- because so much of what is learned here comes from sharing experiences from such a wide range of backgrounds.

Of course with the diversity of nationalities comes a mix of religions, beliefs, languages and economic circumstances -- all part of the learning experience. Some of our students have been in the workforce for some years, others are coming directly from undergraduate study.

I'm delighted that our readers recognize that diversity is part and parcel of what makes SAIS Bologna special.

A word on careers: It is true that SAIS considers itself a professional school. Most of our graduates take up jobs after finishing a SAIS master's (but by no means all -- check out the number of SAIS professors who continued studying and got their Ph.Ds at SAIS). Who wants to invest in a graduate school without the prospect of landing a good job afterwards?

While SAIS does not guarantee graduates will get the job of their choice, our students do very well. We like to think that a SAIS education prepares students for a wide range of careers throughout their working lives. You'll see many SAIS graduates during their careers move between the public and private sectors, from one industry into another,  from a multilateral institution into an NGO.

If you are considering applying to SAIS Bologna, think of it as a long-term investment, one that will bring you benefits throughout your working years. Certainly our alumni see it that way.

Nelson Graves

Why climb the graduate school mountain?

Imagine that you look out your window and you see a mountain towering in the distance.

You've got an inkling to climb it. Something almost inexplicable inside of you is drawn to the idea of clambering up its side and eventually standing on the peak.

Now is not the time to think about what kind of boots you'll buy, what type of crampons to use or how thick the rope will be. Before setting out on the journey, you'll want to ask yourself a one-word question: Why?

You may never formulate a perfectly convincing or articulate answer to that question. The urge to climb may  remain inexplicable. But by trying to answer "why", you'll begin to understand what motivates you. You may decide it's nothing more than a passing fancy and abandon the idea. Or you may set out on the quest.

What does this have to do with SAIS Bologna?

Undertaking graduate study is a bit like climbing a mountain. There's the preparation and training, the beginning, the months of work, the successes and the setbacks, and hopefully your degree.

For our readers who are toying with the idea of applying to graduate school, before you dive into applications and planning, please ask yourself "why".

No two people have the same answer. It's true we have categories of applicants. Some have been working after their undergraduate years and are keen to learn more and turbo-charge their careers. Others are finishing their undergraduate education and want a program of study that will open doors in the international sphere.

Whatever category you fit into, try to find your own answer to the question "why". You probably won't know  right away. You'll need to ask around, speak to people, visit schools. Keep asking yourself the question.

Simply trying to answer the question will make the quest more worthwhile. The challenges of applying, choosing, financing and completing your studies will have more meaning for you. Our readers have heard me say over and over: It is not the destination that counts but the getting there. In your case, each step you take as you climb the graduate mountain will have a purpose.

I write this because I know, from personal and professional experience, that the path to a graduate degree is full of pitfalls. The application process requires tests, a personal statement, recommendations, an interview, often travel; once started, a graduate program requires a significant investment: of time, energy and, yes, money. These are the crampons, the boots, the rope, the harnesses of the climb.

Don't be put off by the challenge. You know that conquering the peak will pose challenges. But if you look inside yourself for the answer to the question "why", you'll be taking the most important first step on your journey. The details will fall into place, and you'll find both the journey and the destination satisfying.

Tomorrow: Why SAIS is unique

Nelson Graves

Bert Koenders: From SAIS to the Ivory Coast

Bert Koenders attended SAIS Bologna in 1979-80 and received his master's from SAIS DC in 1981.

Yesterday he was named Special U.N. Representative to the Ivory Coast.

Koenders's path from SAIS to the Ivory Coast is unusual -- each of us carves out a unique place in the world -- but he shares much in common with other SAIS alumni.

Here are some of the courses he took at SAIS Bologna before moving on to SAIS DC where he concentrated in African Studies:

• International Monetary Theory
• Core Course: Evolution of the International System
• Modern Italian Politics
• Core Course: America and the World since 1945
• Postwar European Political Economies

Bert Koenders

Those courses, or adaptations thereof, are still taught in Bologna. Generations of SAIS Bologna students have benefited from these courses. Three of his former professors still teach here.

You can get a feel for Koenders's achievements here. He has been a cabinet minister in the Dutch government; worked on peace initiatives in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan; served with the European Commission, and chaired parliamentary groups tied to the World Bank, the IMF and NATO. I've left a lot out in the interest of brevity.

Closer to our home, Koenders taught conflict management at SAIS Bologna between 2000 and 2002. You can read a profile of him here in La Rivista, a SAIS Bologna magazine.

“We cannot be an island of wealth when there are poverty and conflict-stricken countries like Sudan. We cannot be environmentally irresponsible when environmental destruction and degradation go hand-in-hand with poverty," he told the magazine.

Candidates often -- and rightly -- ask what kinds of jobs they might get after finishing SAIS.

How about politician, professor, peace negotiator and diplomat?

Nelson Graves

Interning in Bologna

Most SAIS Bologna students have flown the coop for the summer. Two have stayed.

Valeria Calderoni and Saurav Rana are helping Prof. Erik Jones launch a policy research institute, and getting paid to do so.

Valeria & Saurav taking a break

In a video in Tuesday's post, Prof. Jones called the research institute "probably the most important change to the functioning of the Bologna Center that we've had in our 56 years of existence." Sure sounds major.

To anyone who has worked on such an ambitious project from the outset, the range of responsibilities that Valeria and Saurav are shouldering will sound familiar: from moving furniture to analyzing a speech by the outgoing U.S. Defense secretary.

Most Bologna Center students work internships between their year in Italy and their second year in Washington. They work all over the world, as befits a graduate school of international studies. Some of our readers may recall earlier posts on internships and career services.

In the video below, Valeria and Saurav discuss their work.



Once you're through watching that video, if you have a few minutes and you want to know how some educators feel when students leave after graduation, have a peek at these images.

Nelson Graves

What are SAIS Bologna students doing this summer?

I wanted to get an idea of what this year's SAIS Bologna students will be doing this summer before most of them tackle a second and final year of study in Washington.

I was curious for my own sake. I also know that the breadth of their experiences says a great deal about SAIS and the doors that it can open.

It may not always be clear what a program of studies in international relations can lead to. SAIS considers itself a professional graduate school. If you want to know why, consider what a random selection of 26 students -- about 13% of the Bologna Center student body -- will be doing this summer.

Destinations: Washington, Mississippi, Beirut, Seoul, Brazil, South Africa, Brussels, Bangalore, Mexico City, New York, Nepal, Tanzania, Boston, Uganda, Rome.

Jobs at: the International Trade Administration, the Stimson Center, the World Bank, the largest biomass facility in the United States, the State Department, the U.N. Development Programme, a lobbying firm pressing for fair access to home ownership opportunities for low-income families, Bain & Company, the World Food Programme, the European Parliament, the International Finance Corporation, an NGO promoting women, the Grameen Foundation, the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

Studying Arabic in Beirut, Hindi in Brussels, Chinese in San Francisco.

Trekking to the highest lake in Nepal. Doing research in the National Archives outside Washington. Travelling and "chilling" in India and Florida. Waiting tables in Boston.

Imagine if I had spoken to the other 165 students at SAIS Bologna.



Nelson Graves

Think about your future career -- now

SAIS is first and foremost an academic experience. And career choices are never far from students' minds.

Those of you coming to pre-term in Bologna will have a chance to get on track academically, find an apartment and start bonding with classmates. You will also get a dose of career guidance.

All first-year students are required to attend a professional development mini-course that sets the foundation for any search for internships or jobs. Those coming to pre-term are encouraged to take the course before Fall classes start; others take it early in the first semester.

The course has 5 modules that last a total of about 8 hours. It covers a lot of ground: career research; self-assessment; writing résumés, CVs and cover letters; networking, and interviewing.

The professional development course is run by Career Services and is required of students in both Bologna and Washington.

Career Services provides students with career management skills. The office conducts skills workshops; organizes career discussion panels; plans trips, and provides information on professions, internships and jobs. Some readers may remember earlier posts on internships and jobs, career trips and the types of careers that our graduates choose.

Career Services maintains an online database called SAISWorks that helps put students who are looking for internships or jobs in touch with prospective employers. It lists jobs and internships, allows students to upload CVs and other documents, provides employer profiles and maintains an event calendar. For many students, it is the go-to job site.

Here are some of the internships that SAIS Bologna students, leveraging SAISWorks, have landed for this coming summer:

• Kaiser Associates, South Africa
• Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brussels
• International Trade Centre, Geneva
• Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome
• Stimson Center, Washington, DC
• AJ Kearney (USA), Washington, DC
• UNDP, Fiji
• US China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP), Beijing
• Control Risks, Bombay/New Delhi
• Fundacion ETHOS, Mexico City
• Millennium Challenge Corporation, Mongolia
• JP Morgan, London

Next week we hope to offer a video capturing some students telling us what they will be doing this summer. The variety of experiences is as diverse as the student body.

Nelson Graves

SAIS "in situ"

You've heard us say it before: learning at SAIS takes place in and outside the classroom.

In a typical year, students organize trips to points around the globe to deepen their understanding of cultures and international relations. The trips are generally organized in conjunction with academic concentrations or with Career Services. Often, the students take the lead.

This year, some SAIS Bologna students traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. There were also trips to Morocco and Spain. Some students traveled to London and Brussels under the aegis of Career Services. We have already written a post about a study trip, organized with the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development, to Sarajevo -- the 10th such trip SAIS Bologna students have taken with CCSDD to the Bosnian capital.

If you have a few minutes, take a look at this video that captures some moments of a recent trip by Latin American Studies Program students from SAIS Washington to Costa Rica. If you are as weak in Spanish as I am, you can skip lightly over some of the interviews in the middle of the video to view the rest.

Disfruten el video!



Nelson Graves

Internships & jobs

SAIS is a professional program. That means it educates students to take up jobs, most of them after finishing a two-year master's. SAIS graduates find employment all over the world in the public and private sectors, in the non-profit world and with multilateral organizations.

Some students do not wait for graduation to make their mark -- they work while at SAIS. Internships and other jobs can provide valuable experience and also help pay for rent, pizza and the other costs of living in Bologna or Washington.

We get many questions from candidates about internships. You deserve some answers.

First, as Ann Gagliardi of Career Services in Bologna explains in the video below, some students find work while at the Bologna Center. There is a range of jobs at the Center, and students with the appropriate language skills can manage to find work or volunteer opportunities outside the school. Most students do  internships during the summer between their first and second years.

(Career Services provides partial financial assistance to support unpaid full-time summer internships between the first and second year of study. Some academic concentrations also make funds available to students for unpaid summer internships.)

Washington, as many of you know, is a haven for internships. The U.S. government, international organizations, consultancies, think tanks, embassies, corporations: the list of employers is long. Is there another city in the world with as many internship opportunities? Alumni often say that the combination of a strong focus on academics while in Bologna and the professional opportunities available in DC make for the perfect SAIS experience.

Here are some figures on internships that Bologna Center students performed between their first and second years in the summer of 2010 (percentages of reporting students):

private sector	19%
non-profit	28%
multilateral	24%
public	29%
public non-US (percentage of all public)	29%
public US  (percentage of all public)	71%

By location

Africa	11%
Asia	12%
Europe	27%
Latin America	15%
Middle East	4%
United States/Canada	31%

Nelson Graves

From Bologna back to Istanbul

Efsane Aşkin is proof that there is no typical SAIS alumnus.

A Turkish citizen, Efsane studied at the Bologna Center after doing her undergraduate work in the United States. As she recounts in the video below, she took advantage of what she learned at SAIS to carve out a career as an entrepreneur in her home country.

Efsane discusses at some length the textile business that she runs in Istanbul and explains how her understanding of trade helped her stand out in a very competitive industry. As if to prove that monetary matters do not take a back seat to trade at SAIS, she even notes that with a weakening U.S. dollar, her business in Europe has grown. Her clients include some of the biggest names in fashion.

What Efsane does not discuss -- as much out of modesty as for lack of time -- is that she also has a chain of 14 award-winning restaurants spread out in five countries.

In her spare time, Efsane runs the Johns Hopkins alumni chapter in Turkey, a responsibility that brought her back to Bologna this past weekend.

A SAIS degree can prepare you for a wide range of careers. Not everyone has Efsane's entrepreneurial flair. But as she herself notes, the Bologna Center experience very much helped her on her way.



Nelson Graves

The Job Interview: "Get those butterflies out"

Sweaty palms? Wooden tongue? A vacuum between your ears?

Welcome to your first job interview. We've all been there. If you've not been there yet, you will some day.

SAIS prepares its students to confront the world's challenges. For many, the first obstacle once one's studies are under control is the job interview. To help SAIS Bologna students ready themselves, the Career Services Office last week helped organize mock job interviews. Call it learning by feeling uncomfortable.

Students rotated from one scenario to the next, with faculty and staff playing the kinds of roles that SAIS students commonly encounter as they turn to the job market.

Bart Drakulich, who in his day job runs SAIS Bologna's finances and administration, was the head of a New York-based investment bank, riding in a fictitious elevator with the SAIS student.

Richard Pomfret, who teaches Economics, was a mock consultant to the OECD, running into students at a coffee break during a conference on the euro zone crisis.

Meera Shankar of Career Services and Alumni Relations was a U.S. senator on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Speak Spanish? Then you might have met Maria Blanco, who teaches that language at SAIS Bologna but for an afternoon was an HR interviewer at a South American company.

As U.S. ambassador to Italy enjoying a cocktail party, I wish I could say I was type-cast. Alas, it was a learning experience for me, too.

The video below gives you a glimpse of the fun and games.



Nelson Graves

Getting a sense of your future

A SAIS education takes place both in and outside the classroom.

Ours is a professional graduate school, and students start planning their careers well before graduation. Our Career Services offices in Bologna and Washington help them.

Every year SAIS Bologna students have the opportunity to travel to explore career opportunities. This year students went to London and Brussels -- two highly sought after destinations for SAISers. There they visited a mix of companies and institutions: financial services groups, human rights organizations, political risk analysis firms, European institutions, think tanks and media companies.

As we noted yesterday, SAIS graduates go into a range of fields in the private and public sectors, the nonprofit realm and multilateral organizations.

Career trips help students focus on what they will do in the summer between their first and second years, and also on what they might want to do after graduating from SAIS.

Our alumni, who are engaged in an array of careers, help organize the visits and provide advice to students who are in the same shoes they were in 3,5, 10 or even 20 years ago.

Today a panel of SAIS Bologna students who went to London and Brussels shared their thoughts with colleagues who were unable to make the trips.

I spoke to the students before their presentation:



Amina Abdiuahab

A smörgåsbord of careers

Where do SAIS graduates go to work?

This report by the Career Services office in Washington answers that question. It is based on a survey of last year's master's graduates. The highlights:

• 40% went into the private sector, 23% into the public sector, 18% into nonprofit, 10% multilateral, 5% fellowships and 4% further study;

• in the private sector, the leading destinations were consulting, banking & finance, energy, defense & intelligence;

• of those who chose the public sector, 87% won jobs in the U.S. government, with 13% working for non-U.S. governments;

• in the nonprofit realm, graduates favored international development, think tanks & research, education & training, trade & economics, and energy;

• 58% of those who chose the multilateral sector went to the World Bank, followed by the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation;

• more than 3 out of 4 graduates participated in summer internships, and during the academic year half of the students participated in internships.

Career options are important. We keep that in mind at SAIS, which considers itself a professional graduate school and which has Career Services offices in both Bologna and Washington.

You might have questions. If so, post a comment or drop an email to admissions@jhubc.it.

Nelson Graves

All walks of life

Our guest blogger today is Meera Shankar, who is head of Career Services at SAIS Bologna. She is also director of Alumni Relations. It is no coincidence that we link careers and alumni: there is a close relationship between students and alumni, who serve as mentors, guides and sounding boards for our students as they explore the wide variety of job opportunities that await SAIS graduates.


SAIS students are curious and have a genuine interest in such a variety of subjects, regions, cultures and languages that one of the most difficult things is to decide what to do professionally.

The program at SAIS starts people on paths that lead them around the world. In Career Services, we work with students as soon as they set foot on campus to help them understand what their options are and think through how they want to manage their careers.

I have just concluded a trip to London with a group of students. We visited a mix of think tanks, political risk companies and human rights organizations. I am on my way to meet another group in Brussels to visit public relations and lobbying firms, consultancies and European institutions.

During our meetings, students have a chance to speak to people who are doing the work that they themselves might want to do. The idea is to enable students to make informed choices about their careers.

The multidisciplinary approach to studies at SAIS enables graduates to be successful and effective in careers that vary as widely as their interests, and for this, nothing illustrates the point better than our alumni. Our graduates go into all walks of life -- you can find them in top positions in government around the world, banking, consulting, journalism, grassroots development and conflict management.

Not only are they leading people in their fields, but they are also extremely generous with their time and advice in helping students define their own career paths.

Meera Shankar

For more information on some of the career services we offer, click here.

Tomorrow: Photo gallery