I just had my first exam in graduate school. We had a mid-term exam thirteen days and six lectures into my micro-economics course. It's no secret that this course is grueling (it compacts a thirteen week course into four weeks) but it still hit me pretty hard when I turned in the exam last night. I'm not sure if economics had ever got my heart-rate up as high as it was during the last five minutes of yesterday's exam.
But anyways, that's not the point of this post. Last time, I left off wanting to explain exactly what it is that I'm doing here.
Since 2007, I was working on conflict analysis for a private consulting/publishing company that covered a broad array of topics in international affairs. Because we were so broad and yet a relatively small team of analysts, we did a lot of cross-discipline work. As my own knowledge evolved there, I went from analyzing specific terrorist attacks, to looking at terrorist/militant groups in general to, trying to understand how those groups ultimately funded the operations that made the headlines.
I never quite got to the last step - or, never quite grasped it. I had studied organized crime enough to know that criminal groups, terrorist groups, separatist groups and all sorts of other nefarious, illegal operations use, for the most part, the same global financial networks that commercial banks and financial services companies use. My problem was that I didn't have much of a background in international economics and finance. I majored in International Relations as an undergrad, so I had taken an intro course to international economics, but that wasn't nearly enough to do what I needed. I tried to teach myself, learning about international financial transactions and central bank practices piecemeal, but it wasn't getting me what I wanted. This intellectual deficit along with many other factors convinced me to apply to graduate schools which, about nine months later, brought me to Johns Hopkins University in Bologna.
As we were in China and travelling around, I took advantage of my time by reading up more on how the illicit economy (the transfer of money to all of those illegal groups) overlaps with the legitimate economy. At my previous job, I utilized many reports published by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). OFAC is an office within the US Department of the Treasury that tracks and helps to enforce US sanctions against enemies around the world: people who are helping Iran get around sanctions to sell their oil; front companies in Mexico that are suspected of laundering money for international drug traffickers; or similar companies in South Asia laundering proceeds from Afghan heroin sales. OFAC analysts dive down into the nitty-gritty details of how America's enemies try to get around sanctions and then offer suggestions for plugging those holes. They are experts in "Threat Finance" - how groups that pose threats finance their operations. Certainly OFAC isn't the only game in town when it comes to threat finance and they aren't necessarily even the biggest. They just happened to be the group that I was already familiar with.
Coming to Bologna, I was very interested in going to work for OFAC after graduate school. I was planning to focus on international finance, loading up on all of the econ and finance courses I could at the expense of the classes in strategic studies and conflict management because, well, I had already studied those topics at length in my previous job. I'm sure I could still learn plenty from the courses here but, as we learned in micro-economics, those courses offer me diminishing returns. Finance and economics offer a much steeper learning curve.
It may sound like I should have gone for an MBA and, to tell you the truth, maybe I should have. But my interests don't necessarily align with understanding how a firm operates in a market to maximize profits. I definitely believe that illegal groups out there often behave very similarly to firms, but my interest isn't necessarily in how illegal groups operate on a specific level, it's how they fund their operations and how their financial flows impact the economy as a whole. I suppose my interest is more macro, which is why I opted for the international studies route rather than the MBA route. When it comes down to it, though, the international studies program here is competing with MBAs in the job market, so my choice to come here wasn't that dramatically different from choosing an MBA.
Upon arriving in Bologna, two things happened that have caused me to question my trajectory. First, I started meeting professors teaching courses other than finance and economics and realized that if I took a course in, say, Weak and Failed States, I may learn more about what I'm interested in because the specific professor has experience in threat finance - or, at least STUDYING threat finance. (I don't mean to imply that he's a money launderer.) Learning these kinds of things makes me wonder if I should switch my focus to general international relations with a specialization in emerging markets, for example. Or some other program with a title that doesn't necessarily match my interest, but with a faculty that can better help me learn what I set out to learn. This is where academic advising comes in, which will happen over the next week. Luckily, even if I don't nail my concentration before the first semester even begins, I can always change. I think the intent of study is much more important than whatever specialization you happen to choose.
The second thing that happened is that, talking to people in DC, you realize that getting a job with the US government right now does not look very attractive. With budget cuts happening and threats of hiring freezes abound, I'm not willing to stake my future on getting a job doing analyzing threat finance with the Department of the Treasury or State Department. Two years is a long time and who knows, maybe the US Government will have solved all of its fiscal problems by May of 2015 and celebrate their new found budget surpluses by hiring me. Instead of counting on that, I want to have some other options in the private sector. Maybe I should look at my options of pursuing threat finance in the private sector? Does that even exist? I'm not exactly sure.
Which brings me to my main concern about pursuing a career in threat finance: it doesn't create wealth. Call me a capitalist, but I want to be working towards creating new sources of revenue and generating new opportunities for people in the future. That's what would make me feel like a positive net benefactor to society. Threat finance doesn't do that - on the surface, at least. Threat finance analysis and sanctions track down usually very creative people who are figuring out how to get around political obstacles in order to create wealth for themselves and their community. They just happen to be creating wealth in a way that the US deems dangerous to the international system in order to support communities that the US has designated as threats to global security. This work is very important and I think combating threats financially is better than combating threats militarily (when possible) but I worry that it won't fulfill my ultimate need to be a wealth creator. Intellectually, I want to analyze threat finance, but spiritually (ironcially?) I want to create wealth.
So, my challenge is to figure out if it's possible to harmonize my intellectual desire with my spiritual needs. If any potential academic advisers or career services counselors are reading this, be warned, I've got a big dump-truck load full of questions for you. But, I'm happy that I at least have some specific ideas of what I want to be doing in two years and I've already won half the battle by framing my primary challenge. I don't feel like my challenge is a debilitating one, in fact, I think it's pretty interesting and I'm excited to get to work on figuring it out.
But anyways, that's not the point of this post. Last time, I left off wanting to explain exactly what it is that I'm doing here.
Since 2007, I was working on conflict analysis for a private consulting/publishing company that covered a broad array of topics in international affairs. Because we were so broad and yet a relatively small team of analysts, we did a lot of cross-discipline work. As my own knowledge evolved there, I went from analyzing specific terrorist attacks, to looking at terrorist/militant groups in general to, trying to understand how those groups ultimately funded the operations that made the headlines.
I never quite got to the last step - or, never quite grasped it. I had studied organized crime enough to know that criminal groups, terrorist groups, separatist groups and all sorts of other nefarious, illegal operations use, for the most part, the same global financial networks that commercial banks and financial services companies use. My problem was that I didn't have much of a background in international economics and finance. I majored in International Relations as an undergrad, so I had taken an intro course to international economics, but that wasn't nearly enough to do what I needed. I tried to teach myself, learning about international financial transactions and central bank practices piecemeal, but it wasn't getting me what I wanted. This intellectual deficit along with many other factors convinced me to apply to graduate schools which, about nine months later, brought me to Johns Hopkins University in Bologna.
As we were in China and travelling around, I took advantage of my time by reading up more on how the illicit economy (the transfer of money to all of those illegal groups) overlaps with the legitimate economy. At my previous job, I utilized many reports published by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). OFAC is an office within the US Department of the Treasury that tracks and helps to enforce US sanctions against enemies around the world: people who are helping Iran get around sanctions to sell their oil; front companies in Mexico that are suspected of laundering money for international drug traffickers; or similar companies in South Asia laundering proceeds from Afghan heroin sales. OFAC analysts dive down into the nitty-gritty details of how America's enemies try to get around sanctions and then offer suggestions for plugging those holes. They are experts in "Threat Finance" - how groups that pose threats finance their operations. Certainly OFAC isn't the only game in town when it comes to threat finance and they aren't necessarily even the biggest. They just happened to be the group that I was already familiar with.
Coming to Bologna, I was very interested in going to work for OFAC after graduate school. I was planning to focus on international finance, loading up on all of the econ and finance courses I could at the expense of the classes in strategic studies and conflict management because, well, I had already studied those topics at length in my previous job. I'm sure I could still learn plenty from the courses here but, as we learned in micro-economics, those courses offer me diminishing returns. Finance and economics offer a much steeper learning curve.
It may sound like I should have gone for an MBA and, to tell you the truth, maybe I should have. But my interests don't necessarily align with understanding how a firm operates in a market to maximize profits. I definitely believe that illegal groups out there often behave very similarly to firms, but my interest isn't necessarily in how illegal groups operate on a specific level, it's how they fund their operations and how their financial flows impact the economy as a whole. I suppose my interest is more macro, which is why I opted for the international studies route rather than the MBA route. When it comes down to it, though, the international studies program here is competing with MBAs in the job market, so my choice to come here wasn't that dramatically different from choosing an MBA.
Upon arriving in Bologna, two things happened that have caused me to question my trajectory. First, I started meeting professors teaching courses other than finance and economics and realized that if I took a course in, say, Weak and Failed States, I may learn more about what I'm interested in because the specific professor has experience in threat finance - or, at least STUDYING threat finance. (I don't mean to imply that he's a money launderer.) Learning these kinds of things makes me wonder if I should switch my focus to general international relations with a specialization in emerging markets, for example. Or some other program with a title that doesn't necessarily match my interest, but with a faculty that can better help me learn what I set out to learn. This is where academic advising comes in, which will happen over the next week. Luckily, even if I don't nail my concentration before the first semester even begins, I can always change. I think the intent of study is much more important than whatever specialization you happen to choose.
The second thing that happened is that, talking to people in DC, you realize that getting a job with the US government right now does not look very attractive. With budget cuts happening and threats of hiring freezes abound, I'm not willing to stake my future on getting a job doing analyzing threat finance with the Department of the Treasury or State Department. Two years is a long time and who knows, maybe the US Government will have solved all of its fiscal problems by May of 2015 and celebrate their new found budget surpluses by hiring me. Instead of counting on that, I want to have some other options in the private sector. Maybe I should look at my options of pursuing threat finance in the private sector? Does that even exist? I'm not exactly sure.
Which brings me to my main concern about pursuing a career in threat finance: it doesn't create wealth. Call me a capitalist, but I want to be working towards creating new sources of revenue and generating new opportunities for people in the future. That's what would make me feel like a positive net benefactor to society. Threat finance doesn't do that - on the surface, at least. Threat finance analysis and sanctions track down usually very creative people who are figuring out how to get around political obstacles in order to create wealth for themselves and their community. They just happen to be creating wealth in a way that the US deems dangerous to the international system in order to support communities that the US has designated as threats to global security. This work is very important and I think combating threats financially is better than combating threats militarily (when possible) but I worry that it won't fulfill my ultimate need to be a wealth creator. Intellectually, I want to analyze threat finance, but spiritually (ironcially?) I want to create wealth.
So, my challenge is to figure out if it's possible to harmonize my intellectual desire with my spiritual needs. If any potential academic advisers or career services counselors are reading this, be warned, I've got a big dump-truck load full of questions for you. But, I'm happy that I at least have some specific ideas of what I want to be doing in two years and I've already won half the battle by framing my primary challenge. I don't feel like my challenge is a debilitating one, in fact, I think it's pretty interesting and I'm excited to get to work on figuring it out.
Late to comment, but from my own experience, take classes from the professors you respect the most or find most interesting. a broad base with a capstone or thesis or research done in a specific area, like threat finance, is likely to get you the same places. honestly, find a professor you respect with connections in an arena of interest and learn everything you can from that person. that's what i would do were I to do it again.
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