The Good the Bad and the Ugly?

The above title can explain what the first weeks of class readings/lectures has made me realize about international aid, development, and peacebuilding careers. All my classes have assignment upon assignment critiquing the lack of effectiveness in aid and development. Why should I be surprised... the world still has the same problems as it did 40 years ago. Needless to say, it has been exciting to be in classrooms with students who have immensely diverse backgrounds and work experience, but at the same time, a tad depressing when recognizing that we are all gathered in a classroom because the major efforts of the last 40 years have failed. The upside is that I  am gaining a fundamental understanding of the ineffectiveness of aid, which inevitably helps to frame any future work considering two guiding questions: How to do it better? How to to do it bigger? These questions are only useful if one remembers that whatever it is they are embarking on in these fields, is typically not new, and usually you the implementer are not any better prepared or justified in implementing a project than your predecessors. Hence my title- there can be good in international work, there has been bad, and now we have a mushy middle zone: ugly.

As I consider where I want to go with a career, I am really torn. We had a career panel and I sat in on the info. session with the UN HR coordinator. It is extremely difficult to get a job with the UN. Furthermore,  all feedback from alumni, career services and guests (such as the lunch I sat in on today where we heard from a Monitoring and Evaluation expert at OxFam America) that the whole obstacle of "3-5 years work experience" is there, and serious.

Assuming I graduate by the age of 26, I will have to take on some entry level work experience. My greatest hope is that it will be a paid position!! I am still thinking about getting a dual degree in Food Nutrition and Applied Policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition of Tufts. I am on the fence, pulled b/w the pro of having more of a specialty and con of graduating at 27 and gaining one more year of debt.

Baby steps I guess. Step one--pass my first quiz tomorrow. It ain't gonna be easy!