How The Impact Of Professor Vogel's Words Had On My Career Path

"Don't go straight to graduate school after finishing your undergraduate degree. Work first for a few years", this was what professor Steven Vogel told me in the summer of 2010. He had been one of the most enlightening professors during my exchange program at UC Berkeley in the academic year 2009-2010. I also had had the chance to work with him in a Political Science research project.
Following his advice, after finishing my Political Science degree in 2012 and graduating in the top 5% of my class, I embarked on a quest to acquire the most formative professional experiences I could get.
I will return later in this statement to the impact that Professor Vogel’s words had on my career path. First, however, I will address how my experiences as

The initiative my team analysed made use of IT to report damaged city property in a Barcelona suburb. At first, this initiative relied on a team of public employees who walked around the city taking photos of damaged property, sending them via tablet. Later the initiative evolved and went on to rely on citizens to take photos with their phones and send them directly to the city council. Our team concluded that this initiative represented a clear example of how IT is facilitating a more direct connection between public institutions and

After two years of working as a teacher and helping my family’s business, I felt the need to have more professional experiences in the field of politics, which was still my main area of interest.
I have been interning in the in the public sector in Brussels for over a year now. I have worked at the UN Secretariat; the EU Council Secretariat; and the Spanish Foreign Service. These internship programs aim at educating young professionals in the field of foreign policy and they are highly selective1.
These traineeships have been invaluable experiences. They have helped me obtain a deeper and more intuitive understanding of how public institutions work in practice (see CV). At the same time, I am grateful for having been able to secure several grants that have allowed me to sustain myself during these internships.
My long term goal is to contribute the field of public management as an academic with a strong engagement in practical endeavours. From my experiences as a research assistant, I have learned that I enjoy research and that I have the capacity to successfully contribute to the disciplines of Political Science and Public