Public Policy Course Prepares Students for Global Careers
News@AUC spoke with five graduates of an AUC public policy course about how their academic experience has informed their professional journeys, including work with organizations such as the United Nations, Sawiris Foundation and TrustAfrica.
Through the practicum course, Internship in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, students put theory into practice, working alongside local and international civil society organizations, foundations, corporate social responsibility departments and government bodies. Taught by Marwa El Daly '96 '01, adjunct professor in the Department of Public Policy and Administration, the course gives students firsthand experience in social impact, ethical leadership and community engagement while building the skills to take into their future careers.
"It’s more than professional training; it’s a human journey," said El Daly. "Students come back with more empathy, deeper perspectives and a clear sense of how they can drive change, along with lasting friendships and a professional network that stays with them throughout their careers."
"Egypt’s civil society built one of the world’s oldest universities and many of our greatest institutions. I prepare my students to carry that legacy forward.”
Ali Moustafa: United Nations Development Programme
Working under senior management as a policy intern helped me understand the bigger picture and align my work with the organization’s mandate and plans.
As an intern at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ali Moustafa ’25, who is pursuing a master’s of Laws (LLM) in International and Comparative Law through AUC’s Pathways Beyond Neoliberalism fellowship, worked on the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals, impact investing, sustainability reports and development proposals. He attended high-level meetings involving UNDP Brussels and the European Union, supported a healthcare proposal amid the economic and refugee crises in Sudan, and reviewed Egyptian local government issues.
“The key difference was experiencing development work institutionally. I gained valuable experience in analysis, research and reporting, while working under senior management helped me understand the organization’s bigger picture and align my work with its mandates and plans,” said Moustafa.
Courses with Professor Amr Adly, particularly “State and Society in Modern Egypt,” helped him understand economics beyond numbers and quantitative measures. The internship course with El Daly further equipped him with practical skills in reporting, professional networking, CV and cover-letter writing, and engaging with international and government counterparts. These skills, he said, made him feel “very career ready.”
Fatma El Sayad: UNICEF
Someone who knows how to deal with people, who is impactful: this all makes an AUCian. It’s about the personality, not just the studies.
For Fatma El Sayad ’21, ’26 her internship with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) brought together two sides of her AUC education that might otherwise seem distinct: communication and public policy. “It was one of my goals to work at a UN agency,” said El Sayad, who holds a bachelor’s in integrated marketing communication, with minors in entrepreneurship and psychology, and a master’s in public policy from AUC. “I wanted to know about the system, how people work inside the organization and what's happening behind the scenes.”
“All my experiences add up to the person I’m becoming: the person with the theoretical and practical experience, which is very important and fills a very important gap.”
At UNICEF, El Sayad applied the skills she had developed at AUC, from analyzing campaigns to developing themes for projects. “My courses at AUC prepared me to work on different platforms, to think critically, especially if something is going viral,” she said. “I have learned a lot from the UN experience and especially UNICEF to listen to people, to the young people, to give them the floor, to make them feel safe enough to express what they have to say,” she said.
Reflecting on how her academic and professional experiences complement each other, she added, “All my experiences add up to the person I’m becoming: the person with the theoretical and practical experience, which is very important and fills a very important gap.”
Bashar Ghassan: Sawiris Foundation
The whole approach is you monitor progress, provide transparency, learn, and adapt continuously based on evidence. That way you don’t completely negate lived experience.
“I’m a great believer in our potential as people,” said Bashar Ghassan ’20, who majored in economics at AUC and is now pursuing a master’s in public administration with a concentration in nonprofit management.
Ghassan interned at the Sawiris Foundation’s Monitoring Department as part of its Learning and Strategy sector. He joined as the foundation prepared its quarterly strategy reporting, gaining firsthand insight into how a major nonprofit organization evaluates its work. “The whole approach is to monitor progress, provide transparency, learn, and adapt continuously based on evidence,” said Ghassan, referring to MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning), a framework rooted in core research concepts he studied at AUC. “That way, you don’t completely negate lived experience.”
Ghassan’s interest in the foundation began at AUC, when he wrote a final paper on its work for a strategic management course. “I was really inspired by their work,” he said.
"We need to be led by evidence rather than by trend."
For Ghassan, evidence-based development carries particular urgency. After receiving the Tomorrow’s Leaders scholarship and later the Tomorrow’s Leaders Graduate scholarship, he was stranded in Gaza for six months following his admission to AUC as the war continued. During brief moments of quiet amid the bombing, he thought about the opportunity awaiting him. “AUC cares, and it provides facilities and opportunities for its students to excel,” he said.
At the foundation, he saw how evidence could inform strategy and implementation. “We need to be led by evidence rather than by trend,” said Ghassan. The experience also clarified his professional ambitions. He hopes to work with an international nongovernmental organization that approaches Gaza through the lives of its people, supporting development grounded in their experiences and needs.
Kareem Adel: Professional Development Foundation
When you want to address the problems with the public sector in Egypt, or any problems at all, you need the interest of the people.
Kareem Adel ’26 majored in political science with a specialization in international relations and minored in public policy at AUC. He first joined the Professional Development Foundation (PDF) as an intern in 2025. He continued working with the organization through his final year, typically spending three to four days a week there.
"I felt very aligned with PDF because I really do subscribe to their mission of investing in people for sustainable human development."
He began by working on mock proposals and evaluating them for the organization's flagship NGO award. His responsibilities later expanded to helping design 10 workshops for NGOs, using market research to identify organizational needs. His work ranged across issues of sustainable fish farming, meat production and initiatives supporting students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He also explored challenges facing smaller organizations, including how to prepare for leadership succession.
The projects gave him a view of development that was more granular than the broad policy questions he had encountered at university. That perspective was particularly apparent in his work on Hayah Karima, or Decent Life Initiative, the Egyptian government’s large-scale development initiative. Adel researched food and agriculture challenges and considered how an approach initially focused on 10 villages in Aswan could be adapted and expanded.
“I felt very aligned with PDF because I really do subscribe to their mission of investing in people for sustainable human development,” he said. “When you want to address the problem with the public sector in Egypt, or any problem at all, you need the interest of the people.”
Samaa Saad Mandisha: TrustAfrica (Senegal)
AUC doesn’t just teach policy; it reshapes your mindset, builds your confidence, and prepares you to tackle complex challenges from day one.
Samaa Mandisha, a public policy master’s candidate, Mandisha interned at TrustAfrica in Senegal, inspired by the organization’s commitment to strengthening African agency and reducing dependency on external resources..
”While the pan-African advocacy space was relatively new to me, it represented the exact kind of meaningful, systemic work I wanted to be a part of,” Mandisha shared. “My time at TrustAfrica gave me hands-on experience in policy analysis and strategic planning, proving that I can step into complex policy spaces and make an immediate impact.”
"I want to emphasize the incredible value of pursuing a Master of Public Policy at AUC."
Mandisha acted as an internal think tank for the team, bridging global climate data with TrustAfrica’s on-the-ground funding efforts. Her key responsibilities included mapping the climate governance and climate justice landscape, building a partner and donor database, and writing a Political Economy Analysis paper. She analyzed global funding trends, linking her findings to the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and informing discussions ahead of upcoming summits, including COP31 and COP32. Additionally, she took the initiative to write a website content update proposal for the climate portal to help attract global institutional funders.
“I want to emphasize the incredible value of pursuing a Master of Public Policy at AUC. The faculty, the curriculum, and the hands-on opportunities like this internship continuously push you to stay ahead of global trends," said Mandisha. "AUC doesn’t just teach policy; it reshapes your mindset, builds your confidence, and ensures you step out into the world ready to tackle big, complex challenges from day one."
