Student Experience

The Watson Institute houses several undergraduate and graduate programs that take an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to policy-relevant learning in the social sciences. Our programs are designed to inspire today’s engaged scholars and creative thinkers to become tomorrow’s leaders in international and public affairs.

  

After witnessing systematic inequalities first-hand while working two jobs supporting at-risk communities, Jillian Harvey decided she needed to further her education in public policy to make a real impact in her community. After graduating from the Watson Institute's Master of Public Affairs Program in 2019, Harvey became a leader in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the state of Massachusetts.
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Graham Sheridan's success demonstrates that while the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, it's not always the best career path. After earning his Master of Public Affairs degree from Brown in 2014, Sheridan took a winding route to his current position as a clean communities and economic development director at Virginia Clean Cities.
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Kelly Rogers earned her master's degree in public policy from Brown in 2012. Since then, she has leveraged the knowledge she acquired and the connections she made at the Watson Institute into a career that has seen her make a significant impact on the state of Rhode Island.
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Charles Alaimo, a junior concentrating in International and Public Affairs (IAPA), credits Watson's multidisciplinary approach to learning and its extraordinary professors for fully preparing him for a career in emerging technical policy and foreign policy research.
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Hamidou "Hammi" Sylla, who earned his MPA from the Watson Institute at Brown University in 2023, found Watson faculty and staff enormously supportive of his YouTube talk show, "Let's Just Talk with Hammi." Many of Sylla's interviewees became valuable professional and personal mentors.
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Grant Cohen, who earned his Master of Public Affairs degree from Brown in 2024 while working a full-time consulting job, used the experience to sharpen the skills he needed to advance his career in the public service sector.
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Déja Todman's journey from Brown undergraduate to entrepreneur was a long and winding road. After a six-year leave of absence, she returned to complete her studies in International and Public Affairs (IAPA) and is currently serving as a liaison for Vera Krichevskaya's virtual workshops on political propaganda.
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Ashley Delgado, who earned her MPA from the Watson Institute at Brown University in 2024, practices many of the skills she learned at Watson — tact, patience, program management skills and effective use of limited resources — in her current position with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
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