Sonia Cuesta, a 2017 graduate of Watson's Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program, was grateful for the opportunity to give back to the program that helped her advance her own career in public affairs. During the spring 2025 semester, Cuesta, an associate human rights officer in the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), supervised a group of MPA students' Policy In Action (PIA) project as they created real-world deliverables for OHCHR.
For Cuesta, it was a full-circle moment. "When I was at Brown, I always felt super supported," she said, "and even after graduating, I've continued to receive support from both the MPA program's faculty and staff." All of which made the decision to say "yes" when a chance arose to mentor a current group of MPA students an easy one. Cuesta said she embraced the opportunity, “It's been great to feel connected to Brown again and to interact with students and see how motivated and excited they are to create positive change.”
While growing up in Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom, Cuesta said she always had a sense that she wanted to work in international relations or public affairs. After earning a bachelor's degree from Oxford University in French and Italian languages, Cuesta knew it was time to turn her dream of working in international relations into a reality, and she decided that Brown's MPA program would best position her to do so.
"I liked the fact that Brown's program was one year, and that it was focused on professionals," said Cuesta. “It helped me build useful skills to then go and find a job. And because I didn't have four years of undergrad in international relations, I wanted a degree that would be useful and practical.”
The program's reputation for creating learning experiences that integrate theory and practice across traditional academic disciplines also appealed to Cuesta. She found that integration was essential to developing practical skills that positioned her favorably in the job market. Cuesta said she had particularly fond memories of drafting real policy memos while in the program. "The skills I learned drafting memos have been super helpful to me in my career," said Cuesta.
"I remember we had a one-week crash course in communications over the summer," said Cuesta. "The person they brought in did a great job of explaining the importance of communication skills and how it was important to structure presentations in such a way that you tell a story," she said. "I didn't learn practical skills like that as an undergrad," she added.
Cuesta found another key component in her learning journey at Brown was the consultancy (a program feature since replaced by the PIA) that she did with the U.S. Coast Guard. "During my Coast Guard consultancy, I worked for Jeremy McKenzie, who was also a Watson graduate," she said. She remembered the process of synthesizing all she had learned in the program to create real-world deliverables as a formative experience.
McKenzie, a 2016 graduate of Brown's Master of Public Policy program, a precursor to the MPA, became more than just a project supervisor for Cuesta, serving a critical role as a career mentor as well. "Jeremy was such a great supervisor and mentor," she said. "He was so great to me. I bothered him for years afterward, asking him for references and advice, and he's been a great cheerleader for me throughout my career."