Tufts University, The Fletcher School

An International Affairs Degree Is a Wise Investment at Any Time

Studying international affairs during a global pandemic is a solid investment in your future career, according to Associate Dean Laurie A. Hurley of The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

“It’s an investment in a long-term future,” says Hurley, who heads Fletcher’s Office of Admissions and Financial Aid. “Our alumni continue to rise up in leadership positions in every organization.”

Fletcher teaches its students to solve international problems—such as a global public health emergency—using a multidisciplinary perspective, Hurley says. “The pandemic touches so many different disciplines, including public health, business, and the environment.”

Lukas Bundonis, an MA in Law and Diplomacy ’20 graduate who now works at Google, says, “The Fletcher experience teaches you to work across many different cultural and professional contexts.”

Fletcher School students use a variety of funding sources to pay for the degree. More than 90 percent of students receive partial scholarships awarded by the school, based on a combination of need and merit, Hurley says. Students also tap other sources of funding, from student loans and outside scholarships to federal work-study and personal savings.

The Fletcher School offers other assistance to its students and graduates as well—for example, partial funding for unpaid internships.

In response to the pandemic, The Fletcher School added some special measures:

• paid research opportunities for students whose internships were canceled because of the pandemic
• a hardship fund (supported by school alumni) for students with unexpected expenses—for example, after they lost an anticipated job

Focus on Privacy Issues Yields Google Job

Lukas Bundonis leveraged an academic focus at Fletcher on privacy issues and his experience as a US Army Reserves officer into a pre-graduation job as a privacy engineer for Google, where he is championing the responsible use of customer data across the search engine. “The legal and technical bedrock of my privacy education translated directly into a successful interview with Google,” says Bundonis, MA in Law and Diplomacy ’20, from Swarthmore, PA. Fletcher’s educational enrichment grants allowed Bundonis to participate in events that helped him land his job. He gave a talk at the 2019 Annual General Meeting of ICANN’s NextGen program (about the future of global internet policy), which led to a connection with a privacy engineer at Google X. During job interviews, Bundonis received positive feedback about his participation in the Cyber 9/12 crisis scenario competition in 2019.

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Admissions and Financial Aid
https://fletcher.tufts.edu/admissions-aid
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