Murat was drawn to Johns Hopkins SAIS for many reasons, but the two that stood out the most to him were the location and the curriculum. Having lived in Washington, DC for a year after graduating from Yale University, he knew that no other city compared in offering opportunities in the public and private sector. He wanted to be able to network with prospective employers, while also having the chance to intern during the school year. Curriculum-wise, Murat found that the school’s program was his top choice offering a rigorous preparation in both International Affairs and Economics. In addition, his acquaintances working in the policy field are familiar with the school and informed him that employers really value the strong analytic skills that Johns Hopkins SAIS graduates have to offer. Now having completed his first year of the program, he is fully confident that he made the right choice.

Prior to his graduate studies, Murat founded and oversaw an NGO in his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico, worked for a think tank in Washington, DC and served as an education consultant in Dubai – all of which have contributed to helping him put his  education into context and has given him a more grounded perspective of foreign policy.

Murat is currently interning at the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Europe and Eurasia. His time at the Treasury has been one of his most rewarding experiences to date. His team has treated him as a full-time desk officer and has involved him in research and projects that end up on the desk of both the Undersecretary for International Affairs and Secretary of the Treasury. Murat has been able to apply many of the economic concepts he has learned in the classroom to his work and he has gained important practical skills, such as using the Haver database and the Bloomberg platform. Most importantly, he has seen first-hand how US policy-implementation navigates different layers of bureaucracy and he has the opportunity to network with colleagues across different offices within Treasury. Though it has been challenging at times to balance his coursework with the internship, he has enjoyed every bit of it.

Upon graduation, Murat hopes to work for the US government in the field of national security. As a Strategic Studies concentrator, he has studied and analyzed many of the challenging problems facing the US and the world. Doing so under the mentorship of top-notch scholars and practitioners has been both rewarding and inspiring, and it has helped him develop a more nuanced and fair assessment of the tough decisions that public servants have to make. His time at Johns Hopkins SAIS has instilled in him a strong commitment to serve others and to help the world become a safer place, and he’s incredibly grateful to be part of a community that fuels this passion every single day.