With a weak economy and employment levels at all-time lows, many students from this year's graduating class scrambled to pin down post-college plans. These students weighed the possibilities: Should they try to get a job? Should they apply directly to graduate school? Should they take a year off and just travel? More so than in past years, students had to dig deep and ponder their options for the future.
Though Class of 2009 alumnus Lena Andrews wasn't completely sure what she wanted to do after college, she decided to pursue her interest in public policy by applying to the prestigious Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs (FPPA).
"I was looking through the [scholarship, internship and fellowship section of Tufts Career Services Web site] and saw Coro," Andrews said. "I heard more people mention Coro as a good option for someone with my interests, so I looked into it and from there got more and more interested in it. I thought it was a good fit for me because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and I didn't want to go straight into the workforce. [The Coro Fellows Program] is kind of in between school and the real world."
This nine-month long graduate-level program, which is offered in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and St. Louis, introduces its 68 fellows to the wide sphere of public policy. FPPA offers a strikingly different academic experience from that at Tufts. Since the program strives to endow participants with leadership training, strategies for negotiation and networking resources in public affairs, its academic approach blends field placements, group interviews, seminars, focus weeks and individual and group projects.
After a grueling application process, Andrews received word that she had been accepted to the program. According to the Coro Web site, Andrews and the other Fellows selected represent a diverse range of economic, professional, cultural and academic backgrounds. Past participants have been as young as 21 or as old as 53. Despite their differences, all Fellows share one passion: a commitment to civic engagement.
Andrews said that her interest in civic engagement was fostered by her experience as a Tisch Citizenship and Public Service Scholar.
"Since my freshman year I was very involved as a Tisch Scholar," she said.
While at Tufts, the Tisch scholar program enabled Andrews to gain valuable experience organizing and working with several public policy programs in Boston, Somerville, Medford and on campus. She was charged with tasks such as organizing a high school art mentoring program in the local community and overseeing the freshman active citizenship initiative on campus. During the summer, she worked as a fellow at Harvard Law School's Office of Public Interest Advising and as a research assistant at the United Kingdom Parliament. Her experience with public policy was also supplemented by her advanced academic study in political philosophy. She spent a large portion of her senior year researching and teaching political theory for her senior thesis and as a teaching assistant for an introductory politics course.
Beginning in August, Andrews and the other Coro Fellows were placed in various sectors of public affairs
Currently, Andrews is working at the Housing Authority in Pittsburgh, an experience that she says has been valuable.
"[My time at Coro so far] has been a whirlwind," Andrews said. "I've learned a lot. There's a ton of experiential learning, and I've been working with and figuring things out with my group. I'm learning about government, how people and organizations interact in the city. The seminars are inspirational."
Like many recent graduates, Andrews does not know exactly what she wants to do in the future, but she does think that her career will have something to do with public policy. She feels that the Coro program is giving her a lot of guidance in that regard.
"I'm starting to see how this can help give me an idea of what I want to do, or at least what I don't want to do," she said.
For those current Jumbos interested in receiving a graduate public policy degree, Andrews said that Coro has a strong relationship with the Carnegie Mellon School of Public Policy and Management. More information about the program can be found at www.coro.org.
