by: Adiba Juya
Adiba Juya (IPD ’24) applied her data and policy analysis skills for an internship with Education for Employment (EFE). Here is more about her experience.
My name is Adiba Juya, and I am a recent graduate of the Master of Arts program in International Policy and Development at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS), class of 2024.
This fall, I completed an internship with the Strategy and Learning Directorate of the Education for Employment (EFE) Global Organization. The office is primarily responsible for streamlining and monitoring EFE’s three strategic pillars: facilitating employment opportunities for youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, adding distinctive value to employers, and securing funds to sustain EFE initiatives and foster growth.
Unemployment in MENA is among the highest in the world. EFE has been working since 2007 to facilitate and create job opportunities for youth in this region, and the Strategy and Learning directorate of the organization ensures that EFE’s objectives are fulfilled through robust strategies and structured monitoring system.
As an organizational learning intern, I contributed to the impact measurement of youth employment opportunities and job creation by EFE. My main tasks included creating visuals for EFE’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), thereby enhancing efficiency in communicating data with beneficiaries and partners. I utilized data accessed from Salesforce to create these visuals, which were then communicated to senior leadership for decision-making. The reports were stored on a unified information server, and I identified trends, drew charts, and communicated challenges. These assessments aimed to enhance the communication system and contribute to policy revisions for further improvements.
While working with the EFE Strategy and Learning department, I was surprised by the extensive use of large datasets and the fast-growing pace of technology, including the rapid advancement of AI.
For this internship, I researched and synthesized the recent economic context of the MENA region in two pages for an annual report. In a separate task, I drafted visuals for dashboards using Salesforce, utilizing them for partner presentations and stakeholders’ decision-making. I also created visuals on Tableau Public software to communicate EFE’s accomplishments on their website. My contribution felt extremely relevant because of its timely importance and the impact it had on the organization. Moreover, this experience took me out of my comfort zone, helped me build confidence in my technical expertise, and allowed me to utilize my skills for a meaningful purpose.
Although I had previously worked with data visualization tools for school and academic projects, this internship helped me understand the significance of these tools in real-life operations, especially for strategy, planning, and evaluation purposes.
My courses at MIIS, such as Program Management and Analytics, Program Evaluation, Taking Measure of the Unmeasurable, and Policy and Data Analytics, were immensely helpful for this practicum and guided my application of skills to various tasks. Throughout the internship, I applied my knowledge of research writing, developed charts, and communicated visuals for project purposes. As a result, I improved my skills in data cleaning, became comfortable with data visualization tools, and advanced my use of Excel for project management, all of which will benefit my future work.
One of my biggest takeaways from this experience, for those seeking a practicum, is to ensure you make the most out of it. Use the skills you have learned from MIIS courses and apply them while you are still enrolled in school, so you can receive guidance on how to structure your plans. Sometimes, internships help you avoid the wrong career paths. They not only help you understand what to do but also what not to do.