"I wanted to go to a place where I would work really hard, where I would truly get the value of my money and my time. It was a place that was rigorous, but it was a pleasant surprise when I got to Harris that it was rigorous yet collaborative."
Zainab Imam, MPP ’15

HOMETOWN:

Karachi, Pakistan

CURRENT ROLE:

Program Manager, International Center for Journalists

UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE:

BSc. Development and Economics, London School of Economics

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT:

Journalist, The Express Tribune (Pakistan)

Zainab Imam is a program manager at the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C., where she is working on opening a new journalism school in her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan. Imam, a former journalist, has provided oversight for the project, which included construction of a state-of-the-art broadcast studio, newsroom, lecture halls, and developing a curriculum and faculty. Applications for admission open this fall, and the school is expected to welcome its first class in 2018. Here, she shares her path to Harris and how her experience makes a difference in the work she does to provide training and learning opportunities for journalists around the world.

Why public policy?

I’m from Karachi, Pakistan, and I used to work as a journalist. We were just transitioning from a military dictatorship to a civilian-elected government. That meant politics was constantly in the news. The debate that was happening was either not being covered, or when it was being covered, journalists were not able to hold the politicians accountable for their claims because they were not trained to think in that way about legislative business or policy debate.

I decided to go in and really understand how you evaluate what a policy proposal is. Who are going to be the beneficiaries? Who is going to get hurt? What are the unintended consequences? So I decided to pursue a public policy education.

Why Harris?

I chose Harris because of the University of Chicago’s tradition of rigor and statistical work and its focus on quantitative work, because I did not have those skills. I had been working in journalism for a long time and I had done some quantitative work in college, but I lost those skills over time.

I felt (the curriculum) was open ended. I didn’t have to pick one policy area; I could focus on the analysis skills regardless of whatever policy area I chose.

I wanted to go to a place where I would work really hard, where I would truly get the value of my money and my time. It was a place that was rigorous, but it was a pleasant surprise when I got to Harris that it was rigorous yet collaborative.

Is there any advice you would give to a prospective student who is just starting the graduate school application process?

For the application process, I think the most important thing is to know that your application should reflect you, that you don’t have to be this superstar, you just have to be you.

For my undergraduate I didn’t graduate at the top of my class, not even close. I didn’t have a quantitative background. I didn’t have a super high GRE score. The application was about me, what I had done so far and what it had taught me, and where I hoped to go with it.

My statement of purpose was about the biggest mistake I ever made and what it had taught me and how it convinced me that this was what I wanted to do in life. I talked about my biggest failure and what I hoped could be rectified through my education and experience at Harris. I think that the university wants to see how their education can contribute to your improvement, how it can help you improve whatever weakness you feel in yourself.

What big ideas motivate you daily?

I believe that Pakistan’s return to sustained democracy is very contingent upon a diligent media, a free media, and a fair media. And it’s very important to me that I be able to contribute to it with every kind of skill that I have, including what I learned at Harris, which is to be able to really look at a policy proposal in detail and be able to clearly see who it would and wouldn’t benefit.

The reason I work with journalists in Pakistan and around the world is because I believe in journalism, and I believe in the power of journalism to usher in and sustain strong and secure democracy in the world.

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