Every student’s path to Harvard Kennedy School is unique, and what our alumni go on to do after graduating is equally varied.
We asked several HKS alums to tell us about their experiences before, during, and after HKS, and to reflect how their time at HKS has shaped their careers and lives.
Rohan Sandhu MPA/ID 2022 knew that by waiting seven years after college to attend graduate school, he would be well-equipped to make the most of his HKS experience. He immersed himself in the MPA/ID Program and various research centers at HKS, where he continues to work alongside Professors Gordon Hanson and Dani Rodrik on the Reimagining the Economy Project.
Here’s what he shared.
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“When I got to HKS, I knew I wanted to focus my time on economic growth policies, state capacity, and philanthropy strategies. I had a baseline set of experiences and recognized that time in graduate school would be limited.”
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2022
Working as a teaching fellow for Dani Rodrik and Roberto Unger’s class DEV-233: Political Economy and its Future changed Rohan’s career trajectory. He had to translate issues about labor mobility, industrial policy, and economic distress to Harvard College students, sparking an interest in “reimagining capitalism” that ultimately led to his current job.
“Post graduate school, I co-founded the Reimagining the Economy Project with Professors Gordon Hanson and Dani Rodrik. Our project works on a range of issues around place-based policies in the U.S. and industrial and economic transformation strategies around the world. We’re a research center, but we’re also grounded in the experience and expertise of practitioners.”
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2019Immerses himself in the HKS experience
Rohan had two and a half years as a student at HKS, thanks to a special “flex” semester offered because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the pandemic’s disruptions, he was able to immerse himself in campus life and got involved with many of HKS’s research centers.
He was a student ambassador at the Center for International Development (CID), member of the Center of Public Leadership’s (CPL) leadership development cohort, co-organizer of the student-led Social Enterprise Conference, and on a faculty search committee for a new professor of practice. He spent nearly two years working on the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Project on Digital Era Government with David Eaves, conducting research on the evolution of digital public services around the world and its impact on state capacity. In addition, he served as a teaching fellow for DEV-233: Political Economy and Its Future and as a course assistant for DEV-401Y: Applications and Cases in International Development and DPI-640: Technology and the Public Interest: From Democracy to Technocracy and Back.
Rohan Sandhu MPA/ID 2022 (second from left) and classmates gather with former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund Gita Gopinath (center). -
2019Begins the MPA/ID Program
One of Rohan’s favorite classes in the MPA/ID core curriculum was DEV 101: Economic Development: Theory and Evidence, which brought together micro and macro challenges in productivity and economic transformation in a way few other courses do.
“Apart from the MPA/ID core, DPI-830M: Column and Opinion Writing Workshop with Jeffrey Seglin was my best class experience at HKS. The class was about getting to know 17 other students from across HKS programs and their approach to work and life through the columns they wrote for class.”
Rohan Sandhu MPA/ID 2022 smiles with fellow MPA/ID classmates and program faculty and staff. -
2018
Rohan loved the work he was doing but realized that he was relying a lot on his instincts—a function of working in start-up settings. He wanted to professionalize these instincts and take a step back to focus on his analytical skills in the context of a career as a practitioner.
“The MPA/ID Program had been on my radar for at least a decade and was uniquely suited to what I was hoping to get out of graduate school. The seven years between college and graduate school provided me a lot of perspective in terms of what I valued in a day-to-day job, the skills I had and wanted to use at work, and the sectors and topics I wanted to deepen my knowledge of in graduate school.”
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2016
Rohan began working at the International Innovation Corps, a start-up development consultancy, where he embedded teams to work in government departments and social enterprises around India. He led education projects in three Indian states, an irrigation and water management project, a strategy project for a new public sector foundation, and a data management project for an adaptive learning platform.
“This was a foundational experience, teaching me how to think about organizational strategy and structure, business development, managing teams, and most importantly, working with government departments and coalitions of funders and NGOs to design and implement programs with long-term impact.”
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2013Returns to India
He decided to return to New Delhi in time for India’s 2014 elections.
“I moved back to New Delhi in 2013 to join the founding team of the Brookings Institution’s India Center. Working in a start-up think-tank was a privilege because it allowed me to cultivate the skills to go deep into specific research projects and think broadly about what we were doing as an organization.”
Rohan Sandhu MPA/ID 2022 (middle) at a launch event for Brookings India. -
2013Begins working in local government
Rohan worked on business development, participatory budgeting, and a range of public engagement projects on the South Side of Chicago.
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2012Graduates from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science
During his college years, Rohan gained experience working for a foundation, think-tank, and national government ministry through summer internships.
“My time as a student at HKS allowed me to take a step back and reflect on how I wanted to spend my career. Specifically, my training in the MPA/ID has enabled me to connect the dots between the worlds of economic analysis and practice.”
