“My experience at NYUAD has played a pivotal role in my decision to go to graduate school to pursue my Master’s. The ‘experience’ goes beyond the content that I learned in the classroom; it involves the lifelong friends I have made, the professors who I researched with and learned so much from, and the global exposure I have acquired — all of which contributed to my decision.
Coming into freshman year, it was very clear that I wanted to study economics, which made it relatively easy for me to follow a structured four-year plan. I chose to focus my four years on trying various fields within the discipline to not only expose me to a wide array of skills but also to help me find my niche. Ironically enough, it would be my first J-Term course in Uganda, Cultures of Addiction, that would allow me to see the good I wanted to do with economics. Despite my initial level of surety, I still explored within and across disciplines, taking courses like Corporate Finance, Introduction to Computer Science, and Linear Algebra.
Home Region: Kingston, Jamaica
Current: MSc, Economics for Development at the University of Oxford
Location: Oxford, UK
Major: Economics
Arguably, however, my course choice only played a small role in my post-grad outcome when compared to the exceptional career and research opportunities NYUAD has afforded me. Each experience not only made me a stronger candidate for my master’s program, but also provided a clearer picture of what I hope to do in the future.
Currently, I am a Weidenfeld Hoffman Trust Scholar reading for a Master of Science in Economics for Development at the University of Oxford. I chose this program because it represents one of the premier Master’s programs in the UK focusing on development economics. The program provides me access to a strong economics faculty so that I can further narrow down my research interests, and with access to the broader intellectual community at Oxford. My main research interests straddle the line between behavioral and development economics and entail understanding variation in trust across Sub-Saharan Africa and exploring the long-lasting implications of colonization on developing states.
In the long term, I hope to lead research programs in the global south or take the plunge into the corporate world. I'm still uncertain, and that's perfectly fine.”