I am now entering my second year at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (M.I.I.S.), a graduate school of Middlebury College, pursuing my Master’s in International Environmental Policy. Our institute “provides international professional education in areas of critical importance to a rapidly changing global community, including international policy and management, translation and interpretation, language teaching, sustainable development, and non-proliferation (Monterey Institute of International Studies 2013).”
Unlike most of my undergraduate classes, here at the MIIS, our professors focus much more on practical applications versus the theory aspect of class content. This is critical, as most of us students are actively integrating the material we have learned from our lectures, seminars, and workshops in internships and jobs alongside our studies.
Though we are a fairly small student body with 789 students enrolled (according to enrollment statistics of the Fall 2012), we represent 55 countries from around the world!! Personally, I am very interested in marine conservation and promoting sustainable behavior to the public. As mentioned before, my program is that of International Environmental Policy and my concentration is Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM).
The launch of MIIS’s Center for the Blue Economy (CBE) brought the new, one-of-a-kind degree concentration of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management to California. As a part of this great center’s mission, we students have the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research through the CBE partnerships. For me, my CBE fellowship is taking me to Micronesia as I am working for OneReef on Palau, Pohnpei, and potentially Yap Island.