Anna McCallie, MALD 2015, USA
Fields of Study:
- International Environment and Resource Policy
- Self Designed – Religion in International Affairs
Activities involved in at Fletcher:
- Fletcher Forum
- Tufts Energy Conference
- Admissions Ambassadors
Education before Fletcher:
- BA, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, Harvard University
Experience before Fletcher:
- Teach Plus, Inc., Recruitment & Selection Coordinator, Boston, MA, USA
- Albemarle Road Elem./Teach for America, 5th Grade Teacher/Corps Member, Charlotte, NC, USA
Languages:
- Arabic
- French
- Spanish
- English
On the curriculum: Reading through the Fletcher course catalog was simultaneously thrilling and maddening: every single class looked great, but I could only sign up for four! The strength of the curriculum, though, is that over the course of your time at Fletcher, you have a lot of flexibility to take many of these classes, even if they do not directly link up to your fields of study. Classes ranging from Maritime History to Geographic Information Systems are available to me, and I can take them while simultaneously fulfilling my course requirements. Furthermore, Fletcher’s “breadth” requirements ensure that even if I wanted to dive deep into one topic, I would at least touch on all three areas of the curriculum.
A quintessential Fletcher moment: My “quintessential Fletcher moment” came about a month in, when a seemingly mundane Thursday night presented four truly incredible opportunities for engagement. There was a reception for Fletcher and Harvard students at the British Consul’s residence in Beacon Hill, a panel discussion on recent developments in Somalia, a lecture by Vali Nasr on US-Pakistan relations, and a talk by the actual President of Estonia. All day long, I heard people discussing which of these events to attend, and I realized that this agonizing debate was going to be the norm here, because we were always going to have too many phenomenal opportunities to choose from. I chose to attend the British Consul’s reception, but have since confirmed with friends that the other three events were equally amazing.