Sean Ages

Sean Ages, Hopkins-Nanjing Center MAIS 2013, reflects back on his time at The Hopkins Nanjing Center and his experience working for the US Department of the Treasury. Read on to hear how his Hopkins-Nanjing Center experience helped further his career.

Tell us about your current role.
Right now I’m at Treasury’s Office of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which is the office that coordinates the Economic Track of the yearly bilateral summit. Day-to-day, it’s a bit of everything: writing briefings, coordinating a unified government policy for negotiations, doing logistical legwork for the event, and everything in between. I love the variety and the pacing, plus the ability to be exposed to a little bit of nearly every office at Treasury and many other federal agencies.

How did your experience at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center prepare you for this work?
The classes provided a great foundation for me to work at the Treasury. I focused on international politics and Treasury often deals with the intersections of economics, law, international relations, and politics. As I took classes in all of those subjects at Hopkins-Nanjing Center, often with a focus on China or the Sino-US angle thereof, I was on solid footing from the day I arrived. Then of course there’s the personal network; I find myself crossing paths both with classmates at other agencies and private organizations and with connections from the school all across DC. Even though I did my entire degree in Nanjing, being able to access the school's network has been a great benefit.

Did you leverage the school’s network?
Hopkins-Nanjing Center and by extension Johns Hopkins SAIS provided terrific resources for me. I had great resume development assistance. An alumna connected me with my job at Kroll in DC after graduating. Once I had been accepted into the Presidential Management Fellowship program, the school's Office of Career Services offered their services to me, even going so far as to suggest that I attend a school-organized information session on the Foreign Service Examination Oral Assessments; it turns out that the Foreign Service Oral Assessments and the PMF assessments are nearly identical in format. That information was invaluable in my preparation and contributed in no small portion to my success.

Do you have any advice for current or future students at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center?
Hopkins-Nanjing Center is a great place to deepen your understanding of China, Sino-US relations, and everything in between. The language component is challenging, of course, but nowhere else can you really live and breathe Chinese in such a unique academic setting. Consider taking a class that isn’t necessarily in your area of focus; my favorite course was a class, taught in Chinese, on the American Supreme Court. Hopkins-Nanjing Center is also a great community. Every year, nearly all the students and a good portion of faculty participate in a walk around the entire length of the old city walls of Nanjing. Getting every student together for such an event at any other school seems laughable, but only at Hopkins-Nanjing Center is it natural.