Alumni who majored in International and Global Studies (ISGS) join us for a panel and one-on-one chats for the ISGS Field Guide on Nov. 11-12.
Presented by the Center for Careers and Internships and co-sponsored by the International and Global Studies department, this Field Guide brings alumni back to campus in-person and virtually to share knowledge and experience related to their post-Middlebury careers and professional lives.
On November 11-12 Middlebury graduates who majored in ISGS will join us: Thursday evening, alumni will participate in a career panel. Friday morning, some of our alumni guests will hold one-on-one chats with students.
Field Guides help you think broadly about where your academic work may lead you in a professional context by giving you the information you need to think critically about what you’ll do with your liberal arts major or degree after Middlebury.
Join us for the panel discussion Thursday, November 11 at 5:00 p.m. to hear how our panel of alumni went from campus to career.
You can also sign up for one-on-one conversations with alums on Friday morning. Learn more about the alumni here.
Event Overview
Thursday, November 11, 2021
Career Panel, 5:00 p.m. in Hillcrest 103
Sign up in Handshake.
Friday, November 12, 2021
One-on-One Career Chats
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
via Zoom and in person – link to schedule with alumni is in their bios below.
Sarah Bou-Rhodes ‘10
Operations at Wave Mobile Money
Schedule a one-on-one meeting with Sarah in Handshake.
Sarah works with Wave Mobile Money, an American fintech company with operations in Africa. She joined the company in 2008 in Senegal, and worked in various roles including people operations, trial product management, and user growth. She is currently building their IT team across 11 countries and implements and manages company-wide tools, such as their HR Information System and Applicant Tracking System.
Prior to Wave, Sarah worked with Doctors Without Borders as an Human Resources Coordinator in South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She graduated from Middlebury in 2010 with a BA in International Affairs, and from the Graduate Institute of Geneva with an MA in International Relations.
James Davis ‘08
Foreign Service Officer at U.S. Department of State
Schedule a one-on-one meeting with James in Handshake.
James has been a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State since 2012. A native of Washington, DC, James studied international studies with a focus on political science, French, and Africa. While at Middlebury, he studied in Dakar, Senegal and and in Paris during his junior year. James obtained a Master’s from the American University in 2012. He entered the Foreign Service as a Charles B. Rangel Fellow. His assignments have included consular work in Paris and Sierra Leone, human rights reporting in Mozambique and Iraq, and a desk job in the Bureau of African Affairs in Washington. James has also served as a representative for Glifaa, the State Department’s LGBT organization, overseas.
Conor Maxwell ‘17
Editor at Large at Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Connect with Conor on Midd2Midd.
Conor has lived in Washington, DC since graduating from Middlebury College, working at think tanks and an international democracy and development nonprofit since 2017. In the past several years, Conor has worked on geopolitical research for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and implemented inclusive civil society and political party programs throughout South Asia. Conor is currently pursuing his Master of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he is also the Editor at Large for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
Anna Mysliwiec ‘11
Policy Manager, Political Economy and Governance at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Schedule an IN PERSON one-on-one meeting with Anna in Handshake.
Connect with Anna on Midd2Midd.
Anna is a Policy Manager at J-PAL Global, where she manages the Political Economy and Governance sector. In this role, she cultivates new research partnerships and conducts outreach to ensure that international development policy reflects rigorous evidence.
Prior to joining J-PAL, she worked with Innovations for Poverty Action in Liberia, where she managed a research study on the long-term impact of cognitive behavioral therapy on crime and violence. After graduating from Middlebury, she worked at the National Democratic Institute, supporting democracy and governance programs in Tunisia, Syria, and Mauritania. She has also interned with Precision Agriculture for Development, helping start up the organization’s work in Bangladesh.
She graduated from Middlebury in 2011 with a BA in Middle East Studies and holds an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Hannah Stonebraker ‘13
Manager, Strategy, Research & Evaluation at The Impact Architects
Schedule a one-on-one meeting with Hannah in Handshake.
Hannah works at the Impact Architects, a small strategic research firm specializing in impact measurement for journalism organizations and funders of journalism organizations. She received her MBA from the Yale School of Management in 2019, where she focused on digital news media. She previously worked at the International Women’s Media Foundation in Washington, DC, where she provided programs and grants for women journalists covering underreported narratives worldwide. Hannah is passionate about equity, inclusion, and diversity in journalism. Originally from Chicago, IL, Hannah holds a Bachelors in International and Global Studies, with a focus in Political Science, African Studies, and French from Middlebury College.
Hannah has lived in the United States, Ghana, Madagascar, and Israel, and is currently based in San Francisco.
Law School Panel with alums – November 8
Join MiddLaw on Monday, November 8 at 7 pm for a virtual panel to hear from 6 alumni about their law school journey and adventures! Register here to get the Zoom link.
Stanford Law School Research Fellow
This position is full-time, starting Summer 2022. Some applicants available to start earlier will also be considered. Fellowships last for one year, with an option to renew for a second year by mutual agreement of the professor and the fellow.
This role will assist with the research of Professors John J. Donohue, Jacob Goldin, Daniel Ho, Daniel Kessler, and Alison Morantz at Stanford Law School. Designed for graduating seniors or recent college or master’s program graduates, the fellowship provides a unique opportunity for those considering graduate school, law school, and/or business school in the future.
Prior Research Fellows have matriculated to Ph.D. programs at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, and NYU and law school at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. They have been drawn from a variety of undergraduate disciplines, including economics, political science, applied math, public policy, statistics, and computer science. Successful applicants will be matched with a specific professor based on background and interests.
As full-time Stanford University employees, fellows will receive a competitive salary and benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, access to campus athletic and academic facilities (to the extent that any ongoing pandemic restrictions allow), paid vacation time, professional development funds, and the capacity to audit Stanford courses and attend on-campus lectures and seminars free of charge.
Interested? Check out the posting on Handshake HERE, and apply by November 19.
Sharing Steps Three and Four to Develop Your Career During COVID-19 (For National Career Development Month).
STEP THREE: Consider taking on a short-term resume building assignment.
The third tip for National Career Development Month is to consider taking on a short-term resume building assignment.
These assignments help you to stretch developmentally by placing you with a new challenge in order to learn and grow. You can find these sorts of assignments in Midd Gigs.
Midd Gigs projects enable Middlebury students and recent graduates to develop and demonstrate their skillsets, explore career paths, and build their networks. They also give alumni and parents access to the talented network of Middlebury undergrads and newly minted graduates.
STEP FOUR: Try online courses to build upon your current skills and learn new ones.
The fourth step is to try online courses to build upon your current skills and learn new ones. You can find online classes on websites such as Coursera, Udemy, Alison, or LinkedIn. Did you know that Middlebury offers free LinkedIn Learning accounts to students?
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Summer Internship program
Are you interested in forging a career in public service and public policy? There is no better way to begin than gaining first-hand experience in legislating in the halls of Congress.
CHCI Congressional Interns gain close exposure to the intricacies of the U.S. legislative process, spending four days each week working on Capitol Hill. Interns are typically placed with a member of Congress who serves a district in their home state. CHCI interns are trained and entrusted with a wide range of substantive responsibilities, such as:
- Responding to constituent inquiries
- Writing policy briefs to brief Members
- Conducting legislative research on a wide range of critical policy issues, including education, health, foreign affairs, defense, science & technology, and many more
- Attending congressional hearings and policy briefings, including representing Members and staff colleagues
The program balances these real-world experiences with deeper educational dives into the fundamentals of effective leadership and service. On programming days, interns will take part in a robust curriculum centered on CHCI’s four Pillars of Leadership—Civic Engagement, Social Responsibility, Self-Empowerment, and Promoting Community and Hispanic Culture.
During these weekly sessions, interns take part in discussions surrounding issues that affect the Latino community and build strong connections and relationships that can help throughout their career.
CHCI’s curriculum is centered around a graduate-level non-credit public policy course taught by The George Washington University Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute and Trachtenberg School of Public Policy.
Deadline to apply is December 1. Learn more on Handshake HERE.
Learn how the District is committed to carbon neutrality
Today we share the 14th episode in our MiddVantage Exploring Careers in the Green Economy series. Check out the latest video with Alexandra Fisher ’10, Energy Policy Analyst with the U.S. Department of Energy & Environment.
Our thanks to Sachi Howson ’21 for being the interviewer for this episode.
Head to go/MIDDVantage to view the entire series.
Find and Fund Your Summer Internship
Have you been thinking about what to do this summer? It is not too early to start planning your summer internship! Learn strategies for finding or creating the best summer internship for you.
At this session, we will:
• Give you examples of past internships Midd students have done.
• Highlight top resources to use in the search process.
• Discuss strategies for creating your own experience.
• Provide an overview of CCI’s GRANT FUNDING available for unpaid internships.
• Help you with the process of narrowing down fields in which to pursue your internship.
We look forward to seeing you and answering all of your questions!
Sponsored by the Center for Careers and Internships.
RSVP on Handshake now!
All about China – a talk, a job and a J-term internship
The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI, pronounced “sky”) is Stanford’s home for empirical, multidisciplinary research on China’s economy. We aim to foster path-breaking research, create transformative student experiences, and advance public understanding of China’s economy and its impact on the world. Our research runs the gamut from developing interventions to improve early child health and education, to conducting large-scale surveys of Chinese factory workers and college students, to detailed analyses of China’s carbon emissions data.
First come check out this talk on Thursday, November 4 at 4:30 pm in the Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room
The guest will be Scott Rozelle, Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and co-director of Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He will be discussing “Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise”
Hosted by the Economics Department and co-sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, International Politics and Economics Program, the Center for Careers and Internship, and the Departments of Chinese and International Global Studies (East Asian track.)
If this topic and sort of work interests you, then stick around afterward (tentative) for an information session about what SCCEI does, and also learn more about this J-term internship and job:
JOB as Academic Editor. Apply HERE. You will have a chance to co-author papers that are drafted/published under your direction. This is an excellent opportunity to learn quantitative research skills and methodologies, build up writing and publishing experience, and hone your research interests in preparation for a graduate degree program, or the next step in your China-focused career. Past academic editors have gone on to top medical school, law school, masters, and PhD programs in the US.
J-TERM INTERNSHIP: You will spend four weeks (January 3-28) working closely with SCCEI’s Co-Director Professor Hongbin Li, drafting a book on China’s economy, focused particularly on human capital, factories and firms, and other social institutions. This is a writing intensive position, and will involve reading policy documents and academic literature, having one-on-one meetings with Professor Li to discuss book content and chapter outlines, drafting original content based on discussions, and editing existing writing for logic, clarity, and grammatical structure. Apply HERE. Deadline is November 7
Cool J-term classes to consider
Here are 3 interesting choices to consider as you pick classes soon:
INTD 1184 State Supreme Courts
In this course we will explore how cases are developed in the trial courts and presented on appeal in the Vermont Supreme Court. Taught by two recently retired Justices of the Vermont Supreme Court, the course will include both a substantive component focused primarily on Vermont Constitutional law and trial and appellate procedure, and an experiential component in which students will participate in a moot appellate court presentation, including submitting a written argument in a “brief” and making an oral argument to a “bench” of one or more judges. Students will examine in depth the briefs, oral arguments and resulting decisions for two recently decided Vermont Supreme Court cases and will attend the arguments for actual cases being heard by the Vermont Supreme Court. Having read and discussed the briefs and issues in those cases, students will meet with the Justices of the Court and the lawyers who presented arguments. Finally, students will read about and discuss “hot topics” in the United States’ legal and justice system, including how judges are selected and the length of judicial terms, the cost and availability of legal services and the future of the legal profession. The visiting faculty are recently retired Justices of the Vermont Supreme Court.
INTD 1219 Applying New Tools and Technologies to Today’s Security Challenges In 2017, North Korea tested a missile capable of delivering a powerful thermonuclear weapon against cities throughout the United States. How do scholars study international security challenges like the spread of nuclear weapons? In this course, students will develop an open source intelligence toolkit applicable to a broad universe of international security challenges, with special focus on nuclear weapons and North Korea. No prior knowledge is assumed, and students outside political science are encouraged to participate. The tools covered, such as satellite imagery, have broad applicability beyond nonproliferation, to areas such as human trafficking, climate change, oceans policy, and counterterrorism. (J. Lewis, MIIS visiting winter term instructor)
INTD 1234 How (Not) to Get Away with Murder: The Investigation and Trial of a Homicide
Det. Danny Reagan is called to investigate the disappearance of a college student last seen at a local, off campus bar. Suspecting foul play, the Crime Scene Team is called in to assist. Utilizing scientifically accepted techniques and pertinent case law, students will help direct and solve the mystery by viewing and analyzing evidence and determining which steps the investigation should follow. Once a suspect is identified and arrested, students will then prepare their case for trial and the scrutiny of the prosecution and defense teams, ultimately learning if they arrested the right suspect. (P. Bevere, visiting winter term instructor) Peter Bevere, ’96, is a Deputy State’s Attorney with the Addison County State’s Attorney’s Office and have experience handling cases ranging from domestic and sexual assaults to homicides. I have been an attorney for 19 years, with over 13 years of experience as a prosecutor in both Vermont and Massachusetts.
J-term internship with Center for Terrorism at MIIS – apply now
CTEC is looking for qualified Middlebury College undergrads to work with us during Winter Term 2022. These students will assist CTEC’s Deputy Director and Senior Research Scholar on a variety of projects within the Accelerationism Threat Assessment and Research Initiative.
Some of the tasks that interns may work on include: building literature reviews, helping develop educational programming, contributing to research strategy discussions, writing reports, and communicating findings to CTEC leadership and stakeholders.
In particular, we are looking for students who are passionate about independent research and are willing to follow rabbit holes of information to uncover patterns and new knowledge about extremist movements.
An example could involve doing archival and investigative work on MyMilitia, a web forum dedicated to the American far-right militia movement.
Apply HERE in Handshake. Deadline is Nov 7