Fostering an Individual Approach for Global Impact

Jeremy Epstein (MURP/Sciences Po) and Yaritza Gonzalez (MPP)

After a jam-packed week meeting with international development professionals in DC, we feel much more knowledgeable and well-equipped to navigate the job market.  Our speakers included many UCLA Luskin alumni and people working in many different facets of international development work.

We met representatives of US bilateral development organizations, such as Luskin alumni Jeff Garnett (Millennium Challenge Corporation), Jacob Veverka (USAID), as well as speakers from the US State Department and the Senate. We also heard from many people working on education and children’s issues internationally, such as Liz Grant (Global Partnership for Education) and Sasha McConnell (Save the Children). The speakers’ diverse backgrounds in urban planning, public policy, social work, and law helped the UCLA Luskin students in our group understand the specific benefits and unique perspectives of each discipline.

Additionally, we heard about the various soft skills and strategies that are invaluable in building a career, from networking and job searching to language learning and finding mentors.  We spent the entire week having meetings at Open Gov Hub, a unique co-working space for community-minded non-profits working on good governance projects. This too was part of our education, getting to experience the connective possibilities of such a dynamic space where people from many organizations come together to solve the world’s most pressing political problems.

Overall, the GPA Washington DC global careers meetings were invaluable, and we also gained a sense of what it might be like to live and work in DC. During our free time, we explored the District’s monuments and museums, such as the Washington Monument and the African American Museum. We also explored restaurants and markets, like Union Market, which reminded us a lot of Grand Central Market in Los Angeles.

Beyond the great connections we made with UCLA alumni, we also made new connections between departments at Luskin. We learned more about how each of our fields, from urban planning to public policy and social work, fosters a unique approach to making an impact in the world, and where there might be room for each to complement and collaborate with the others going forward. We left DC feeling excited to further build our skills back at UCLA in order to find internships and jobs at organizations like the ones we were introduced to through the GPA Washington DC global careers meetings.