A joint post by Abigail Daley & Louisee Cruz
Louisee Cruz traces her path to career success directly back to her decision to undertake the Masters of Science in Public Policy and Human Development, graduating in 2017. She speaks to Abbie Daley about her journey, lessons learned, and her hopes for the future.
When UNU-MERIT/Maastricht University MPP alumni leave our Masters in Public Policy and Human Development, they leave with a valuable skills set – gained from being a part of the UN system – to build their careers, often in policymaking and academia, in many countries and sectors across the world.
UNU-MERIT’s Alumni Office works with alumni to support the next steps in their careers and to share the lessons learned from individual experiences in order to support and encourage peers with their education and career development. Louisee Cruz says her driving passion is to make people’s lives better, to help them achieve their full potential and live with dignity, and she is using her role at the World Bank to do just that. Abigail Daley, Alumni Advisor, met with Louisee in Maastricht to ask her about ambitions and career before and after she undertook her MPP.
When did you graduate and what have you done since?
I graduated from the MPP in 2017 and I am currently an education specialist working at the World Bank as a consultant.
What direction has your career path taken so far?
During my Bachelors in International Relations, I realised that I wanted to work with public policy as I could impact people’s lives at scale. When I finished my Bachelor’s degree, I started working at an educational NGO on project management and advocacy. As part of the advocacy work, I used to commission studies to support our claims and promote evidence-based policymaking. But then I realised I wanted to be not the one commissioning the reports but the one preparing the studies and analysing public policy.
What did you do when you realised that you wanted to change?
Back then, I did not have experience with quantitative data analysis, and, consequently, did not feel confident in interpreting causality in studies that tried to estimate the impact of a certain policy. I started looking for a Master’s degree that could equip me with these skills, and the MPP was a perfect match. Not only did the program offer the technical skills I was looking for, it also related to topics that I really care about, such as poverty and inequality reduction, sustainable development and social protection policies. I was also very excited about the PBL module, as it puts the student at the centre of the learning process and provides the opportunity to enhance communication skills, assertiveness, and group-work.
What happened after graduation?
When I graduated from the MPP, I had this new skill-set and I wanted to put it into practice. I got an unpaid voluntary position at the UN in which I contributed to the data cleaning of a household survey from Mozambique. I have also worked as a consultant for the Brazilian Ministry of Education, establishing an impact evaluation division at a School of Public Policy, setting protocols to assess governmental demands for impact evaluations, and even teaching workshops for civil servants. I have also done extra training on managing impact evaluations at the World Bank and J-PAL, a research centre that works to reduce poverty.
How has the MPP help your career specifically?
The MPP helped me to strengthen a side of my profile – hard skills for policy analysis – that wasn’t well-developed before. I already had experience with advocacy, capacity building, project management, and even sound communication skills. The MPP completed my profile in the sense that I can now produce, analyse, and disseminate evidence in policymaking more naturally. Currently, at the World Bank, I have the opportunity to use different skill sets: producing analysis and also providing technical assistance to governments in the design and implementation of their education policies. It is in this day-to-day interaction with governments where I see the most direct impact of my work.
What would you recommend to students and alumni interested in pursuing a career in education policy?
Basic education in most countries is provided in a decentralized system, meaning that what is planned at the national level passes through several actors until it affects students. So, if a fellow MPP student wants to make a difference in education policy, he/she needs to understand this chain and needs to know how education takes place inside schools and classrooms. Visiting schools, talking to teachers and head teachers – understanding the challenges in providing effective instruction – will help translate the evidence and research in a more meaningful way, which, ultimately, helps your education policy be more impactful to the community you are serving.
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The opinions expressed here are the author’s own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of UNU.
MEDIA CREDITS
L Perez/ UNU-MERIT