Middlebury Institute graduates discuss where they are working today, how the Institute helped them get there, and what advice they’d give to current and future MIIS students.
My name is Jonathan Phan and I graduated with a joint MA in International Policy and Development/ MPA in Social Change from the Middlebury Institute in 2024. My language of study was Japanese. Prior to coming to the Institute, I earned my BA at California State University, Monterey Bay.
I am now YouthBuild program manager for Rancho Cielo in Salinas. I manage our federal YouthBuild grant, collecting and reporting data to ensure we meet the requirements. Rancho Cielo offers vocational training and high school education with programs in automotive, culinary arts, welding, construction, and more.
Prior to coming to Monterey, I was part of the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program from 2019 to 2022 and worked in Nagasaki City, Japan.
As a student at the Institute, I worked with a fellow student on laying the foundation to create our own nonprofit (which we still hope to do one day). My coursework/class projects focused on real data sets, and we used those skills to conduct our practicum. I was then able to leverage this experience to bolster my skillset further. I also found the Institute’s alumni network and the career management course to be very helpful.
My best advice to current students is to work on networking through internships and collaborations with organizations outside of campus. It worked for me!
Joint Master of Public Administration/Master of Arts in International Policy and Development
| by Sierra Abukins
Graduate students have the chance to explore how we shift conflict from destructive to constructive and work towards new possibilities via funded fellowships to support applied research and projects.
| by Anna Santos MPA ’16
MPA graduate Anna Santos shares how the organizational storytelling skills she learned at the Middlebury Institute helped her launch a career in marketing internationally-focused nonprofit organizations.
| by Jason Warburg
Eighteen students have completed paid internships with UNICEF over the past two years through a Memorandum of Understanding that kicked off in 2019.
