Professional Reflection
Study and determination
All that I learned in the ISS program fits my current and future career. At this very moment I’m still a journalist and political analyst for a Romanian television, and I hope that my next path in career will be to work for one of the UN structures or for the European Commission in Washington. The Master taught me some important things. First of all is how to interpret all the events around us from International Security perspective, and I wrote about these achievements in my academic essay. The second one is how to learn and write in a structured way, and the last, but not least, how to relate in a new way with my daughter. For me it was a long and bumpy road.
I began as a graduate non degree seeking in august 2013, few days after I landed in California as a new resident. I had a Bachelor Degree in Law from Romania, but my GPA, didn’t allow me to start the Master program. Fortunately, I met some wonderful people who helped me and explained me that I need to improve my GPA first, for demonstrating that I can reach the academic standards, here in US. I would like to thank professor Paulette Kurzer and to the retired Cara Wallace, who had patience with me when I was kind of lost in a new country, in a new education system and in a new life. Sometimes I’m joking that I was like the last sheep on the boat, which means somebody who is dizzy after a long trip and a new situation and who doesn’t understand what’s happening. I was so closed to mess up everything because during my first course, The Climate Change, I didn’t receive my grades on assignments, even I was an A student on each of our discussions and I submitted everything on time. I wrote to Professor Edella Schlager and she wrote me back that she didn’t receive anything from me. The mystery was solved soon. I did not know at that time that I need to submit a DOCX as an attachment and I wrote directly in the drop box platform (it was the old one, before D2L). I received my first A which gave me the impulse to move forward. In august 2014, one year after I started as graduate non degree seeking I was asked if I wanted to apply for the Master, for which I met all the conditions. It was one of my happiest days when I was accepted as a graduate student in the Master.
I loved the diversity of professors in the program. Some of them accepted more creativity in the assignments, some of them were very strictly with the academic requirements. I learned to write in an academic way which is on the opposite side of the journalistic style. I also learned that I need to be very rigorous and I used the citation style which I never heard of before. At the same time it was very frustrating because I still don’t have the lexical easiness like I have in my native language, and sometimes I need a dictionary for the phrasal verbs, which are still my nightmare. Even so, the professors appreciated my points of view which were often different form most of my colleagues and this gave me confidence. My only regret is that there are still some courses which I would love to take, but I did not have the opportunity. Maybe, if I have the money I will take them no matter how. I’m thinking of Global Political Economy, Soviet and Post-Soviet Foreign Policy and Intelligence, US National Security, and International Politics of Middle East.
There are 3 professors which I have in mind for recommendations: Eva Maria Maggi, Gary Guertner and Paulette Kurzer. It is about rigorousness, creativity and heart. From Eva Maria Maggi I learned the rigor of academic writing, form Gary Guertner that creativity must be encouraged and from Paulette Kurtzer that if you have heart and mind you can succeed.
I had a moment when I thought that I would never finish the program. It was when I read Bueno the Mesquita writing about “Politics and the Suboptimal Provision of Counterterror” in the How Terrorism Ends course. It was like an alien language. It was for the first time in my life when a read about terrorism in mathematic formulas, which were embedded in complicated social patterns. I knew then that I would never ever take the Social Research course.
I’m writing all these because I discovered that US education system is a more flexible one, with a lot of options, even if you want to learn in your late years, and it really offered me a second chance for learning. I also found out that I need to open my eyes and read every word that a professor posts on e-platform and also, to ask every time when I don’t understand something.
The multiple options offered us in choosing the courses were another big challenge for me. In my Eastern European system we hadn’t this freedom of choice. So, everyone in a program must learn the same courses even they like it or not. Choosing a course doesn’t seem a big problem for a student who is familiar with it. For me, first of all, implied a projection of my career and a good opportunity to ask myself what I want to do later, after school. I chose courses which taught me about different regions of the world and about democracy because I knew that this was what I wanted to do further.
The ISS Program brought me a closure. During the Nonviolent course I understood why in Romania the Revolution almost failed, while in other Eastern European countries succeeded. I found all the theoretical explanations, and I also understood my role as a public person in Romania. Even if I live in US now, and I want to have a future career here, I still have deep ties with my native country and I still care for it.
Therefore, the ISS course had a huge impact for my career, for me as an individual who never had a chance to learn in a different education system than the communist one. It also helped me to become closer to my daughter and showed her that people can study even they are older, with a previous career. She is an undergraduate student in a Fashion Merchandise program at California State University Northridge, but seeing me deeply involved in my study work made her understand that learning is one of the most important things. During my ISS program I often told her that the only wealth which we had all the time with us is what we learned in school during our lifetime. The more knowledge you have, the wealthier you are, because you never know where you settle in this open World.
You need to know that I am also a cancer survivor and all these academic experiences seemed almost unreal for me, who I barely thought that I would live a few years after my diagnostic. I never thought that I would become an US resident and I never thought that I would be able to face a Master program in English, in the most advanced country in the World.
As a conclusion, my ISS program was not only about learning, it was a life experience which combined the learning desire with a new relationship with my daughter, my adaptation to my new country with a fine tuning with my past. And I will not stop here. I already have plans for my PhD in the European issues for next year.
Overall the ISS program opened for me a new path and a new direction for my career. I don’t know yet what the future will bring me, but I’m confident that if you really want to succeed is only about determination and hard work.
I’m very happy that I chose the ISS program at University of Arizona and would I do it again if I had to start it all over again.
