Student Profile: AJ Horkan, BA/MPP Class of 2025

Baseball has had an outsized impact on Andrew James (AJ) Horkan, BA/MPP Class of 2025. “I truly developed the confidence to pursue my goals on the baseball field during college—due in large part to the fact that I came in just awful…maybe the worst player on the team,” Horkan said with a laugh. “I spent my first season in such low standing that I was excluded from travel lists in favor of injured teammates.”

Horkan said he quickly realized that his reliance on talent from when he was younger left him with a visibly lacking work ethic. “By the summer after the first season, I pretty much had to either transform or not make the team the next year. So that summer—perhaps for the first time—I pretty much dedicated myself solely to one effort: relearning baseball.”

The time he spent training over the summer, Horkan said, also gave him a sense of confidence—which actually inspired him to pursue Harris. "I saw that I was able to do what I put my mind to.”

Horkan’s experience on the baseball team also helped him develop—and deepen—his understanding of teamwork, both on and off the field. “I cannot overstate the impact and value teamwork had on me. I saw clearly how every team member’s success was as important as my own.”

Horkan connects the collaborative nature of teamwork with public policy. “When it comes to policy issues, I’m working with everyone to solve things that need to be solved, to effect positive change in the world.”

However, Horkan’s enrollment in the University of Chicago’s five year Master in Public Policy with the College (BA/MPP)—where UChicago undergraduates complete a bachelor’s degree and a Master in Public Policy—was almost unintentional. "To enroll in the BA/MPP, you have to finish your undergraduate public policy coursework in three years, and I had been taking public policy course after public policy course as electives because I just fell in love with the way they were taught. Then, while in an advisory meeting, my advisor said, ‘Oh you must be doing the BA/MPP, because there's no other reason for you to have taken this many public policy courses in a year and a half.’ It kind of shifted from being something that I wasn't aware of to being the goal of my education overnight."

While pursuing the Master’s portion of his degree, Horkan said he plans to explore energy policy. "I think the energy transition, which is going to have to happen in America—and internationally—in the next couple decades is a huge issue. I'm particularly interested in the international development component. Specifically, how does the US strike a balance with countries that don't have the industrial base that we have? It's something that I'm very excited to learn more about.”

For prospective students considering a master’s program at Harris, Horkan offers this advice: “Don’t doubt yourself. Trust yourself and work proportionally to how much you trust yourself.”