By Muath Alamri MC/MPA 2026
In this personal reflection, Muath Alamri MC/MPA 2026 traces an unconventional path through Harvard Kennedy School—defined not by life in Cambridge, but by 72 flights between Virginia and Boston. He captures the quiet discipline of an early-morning professor, the intensity of a global classroom, and the support of mentors, family, and his home country of Saudi Arabia that deepened his experience. Rather than offering a universal formula for success, his is a candid account of holding onto ambition, pushing through discomfort, and emerging as an HKS graduate with renewed purpose.
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Dreaming of Harvard was never, strictly speaking, a dream of mine. I have always considered myself a realist—even in my aspirations. I do not wish for things I cannot see a clear path toward. Uncertainty unsettles me. But there is one thing I have always known with certainty: I am ambitious and when I want something, I choose the hard way to earn it.
So, here is my story: when I finally decided to apply to Harvard Kennedy School, I did exactly what you might expect from someone like me: I submitted my application in the last 30 minutes before the December 2024 deadline. Not out of carelessness, but because I had studied the process carefully before committing. I also applied to Columbia University that same season—a backup plan if I received rejection because the realist in me insisted on having one. By March 2025, the acceptance from Harvard arrived. Was it a dream or was it a miracle? I am still not entirely sure. What I do know is that it became real.
The hardest route
Most people, when they picture a Harvard education, imagine living in Cambridge—morning coffee in Harvard Square, late-night seminars, the kind of immersion that transforms you by osmosis.
I chose differently. I never moved from Virginia to Boston due to my family commitments. My son just started first grade at the same school as the friends he grew up with. Am I going to disrupt his life? No, I commuted instead—72 flights across 36 weeks of the academic year. I learned an entirely different curriculum alongside my coursework: the curriculum of patience. I had to learn how to balance my professional life with my family’s obligations. It wasn’t easy, but patience was my go-to strategy—one I had to lean on repeatedly over 36 weeks of flight delays and cancellations, the anonymous intimacy of hotel rooms, and the small talk of Uber drivers who sometimes turned out to be the most interesting conversations of the week. Hours of reading compressed into flight time. Essays written at 35,000 feet.
I will not pretend it was glamorous. There were mornings when I wondered whether I had miscalculated the whole enterprise. But I had made a choice: this education was worth the discomfort, and that I would not let geography become an excuse.
What the classroom taught me
At Harvard Kennedy School, I witnessed something I had not expected: a profound, almost urgent hunger to learn. I had never seen it before in either my master’s or my bachelor’s studies. It seemed to have no relationship to age. Some of the sharpest minds in my cohort had been in public life for decades. Some were half my age. What united them was a seriousness of purpose that the classroom amplified rather than contained. They came from almost every corner of the universe. From India, Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Bhutan, China, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. They fought to be on campus despite the immigration difficulties some international students faced during the summer to obtain their student visas.
One image stays with me above all others.
Professor Deborah Hughes Hallett, who taught API 205: Politics and Policies: The Power of Data and AI, would arrive every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:30 a.m.—a full half-hour before class was scheduled to begin. She came to greet her students as they arrived. She did this despite having, at that time, real difficulties with her mobility. She never mentioned it. She simply showed up early every time. Education and passion have no age limit. She showed up early every time—not because she had to, but because that is what it means to truly care.
That image—a distinguished professor navigating her own physical challenges, standing at the front of a classroom to welcome students before the hour—taught me more about discipline and dedication than any lecture could.
I was also privileged to be a Mason Fellow, which brought me into Suzanne Shende’s orbit. As the director of the Edward S. Mason Program, her enthusiasm for helping every student was genuinely inexhaustible. She would respond to emails at midnight, at dawn, whenever it mattered. I found myself sincerely asking: what motivates someone to give so generously of themselves? She once told me something I have written down and kept: “Having a good intention is one thing, but you need to do your work in the right way.” It sounds simple, but it has changed how I approach nearly everything.
The faculty members who shaped me
I had the privilege of learning from some of the most distinguished minds in public policy and leadership. I learned how to write academic papers, conduct surveys, analyze data, write public policy papers, fundraising and management, developing people, leadership, and negotiate the most unpleasant topics. In the classroom, I was taught by Roger Porter, Anil Arora, Grant Freeland, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, James Sebenius, Marshall Ganz, Tarek Masoud, Arthur Brooks, Matthew Lee, and Tim O’Brien—each bringing a different lens to the questions that matter most in public life.
Beyond the classroom, I had the rare opportunity to engage with Steven Jarding, Celestin Monga, Ricardo Hausmann, Graham Allison, Jake Sullivan, Rebecca Henderson, Fatema Sumar, Samantha Power, Dean Jeremy Weinstein, and President Alan Garber. These conversations—informal, candid, and often unexpected—were an education in themselves.
Harvard is not a bubble. It is a different world. The topics we explored were not locally relevant. They were human issues. I learned that being a creative thinker is not impossible; you just need the courage to believe you belong in that world.
The people who made it possible
No journey of this kind belongs only to the person making it. Mine was built on the generosity of others, and I am conscious of every one of them.
Saudi Arabia, my country, has always valued higher education and the institutions that push the boundaries of knowledge. It sent millions of Saudi citizens abroad to study, benefiting the country and humanity as a whole. His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed Alissa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, my mentor, who wrote my recommendation letter and whose encouragement never wavered throughout the year.
My wife, who carried our family on her own while I was away, and who gave me the emotional steadiness to keep going when the exhaustion became heavy.
My father, who called consistently to check on me, and whose prayers and blessings I carried into every classroom.
The last lunch
The day before Commencement, I received a private invitation from the dean’s office: lunch with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist and a member of the HKS Class of 1992, who would deliver the graduation address the same day.
I found myself seated next to Academic Dean for Strategy and Engagement Gordon Hanson. At some point, he turned to Zanny and asked what she would advise HKS to do differently—what she wished she had learned in that classroom that she hadn’t. She paused, and then said something that has stayed with me since: “HKS changed my life. I learned to write at Oxford and to lead at HKS. There is nothing I would advise them to do more than what HKS has already been doing.”
I looked around that table and understood, in a way I hadn’t fully articulated before, that she was speaking for many of us. For the alums who had come before, and for those of us just finishing. I believe she spoke for me, too.
An ending that felt like a beginning
On May 29, 2026, I received an email from Harvard informing me that my role as an HKS student had ended that day. I read it twice. There was a sadness in it—the particular sadness of finishing something that has become part of your rhythm, your identity, your Tuesday mornings. No more flights to Boston. No more arriving at the classroom to find Professor Hughes Hallett already there, waiting.
But I also recognized what the year had deposited in me: a sharper sense of what I believe, a clearer understanding of how I want to lead, and a deeper gratitude for the people and institutions that made it possible.
Was it worth every penny, every hour of sleep sacrificed, every one of those 72 flights? Without question, yes. The new task for me is to live up to that standard as a Harvard Kennedy School graduate and do good.
Images courtesy of Muath Alamri MC/MPA 2026.
