Political Science

I began my acquaintance with international relations at a very young age. I was born into a Mexican-Italian family in Tucson, Arizona, and so being taught me greatly about the dynamics of working within different cultures  be it those of my parents or that of the community. My Mexican mother and Italian father made sure that we were well acquainted with their respective cultures, while we children took on the responsibility of orienting ourselves to our American environment. My cultural knowledge was further enriched when my family later moved to Sonora, Mexico.

At the age of eighteen, I moved back into Tucson to pursue higher education. I took up an Economics degree in the University of Arizona while maintaining a job to support my studies. During this period, I further enriched my knowledge by taking up language courses in Mandarin Chinese, Italian, and Tok Pisin. In 2006, I was given a chance to study in Nanjing, China, during which the experience of working with U.S. Foreign Service agents further fueled my desire to pursue a similar calling.

In the summer of 2008, I applied and was selected for an international internship in the American Embassy in Papua New Guinea. This experience gave me an opportunity to work with the ambassador and several diplomats, all of whom encouraged me to pursue my goal further. During this time, I formulated several economic and political reports, and also got to work with key personnel in several projects, including a Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreement with the national government of Papua New Guinea.

Upon my return to the United States in the same year, I was hired to work as an intern in the US Foreign Commercial Service in Monterrey, Mexico. My tasks in this post included assisting in research oriented towards creating international opportunities for American businesses on both short- and long-term bases.

I immediately began work as a management analyst in the US Department of Defense following my graduation in 2009. The various pressures and the stringent standards we have to maintain in working for the Pentagon has, I believe, further honed my attention to detail, tact and diplomacy, and acumen for the nuances of international relations.

After all of this, I am proud to say that I am still possessed of the desire to further enhance my knowledge and experience of the discipline and practice of international relations. Though my heritage and experiences have taught me much about it, I still consider my knowledge limited, and there are still a lot I would like to learn more about. Economic assessment in the current global crisis, issues of policy and governance, emergent markets in the Asia-Pacific region, international trade relations  these are but some of the fields that I am genuinely interested in, and I have more than a couple of questions regarding them-questions that I believe will be best resolved with the help of the esteemed faculty of Johns Hopkins University.

To this end, I believe that my economics degree, my language skills, and my experience working in Asia and Latin America equip me to better deal with the academic and professional requirements of the course. I am confident that this course and the opportunities it will provide me will give me the best chance of further coming closer to my goal of ultimately becoming a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Department of State.