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.

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.

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.

Wendy Schiller told the Brown Daily Herald that the new school will unify programs, expand research opportunities, and better integrate undergraduate and master’s programs for greater interdisciplinary collaboration.

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.