I work in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution--AMA

[fpindc]

I'm a recent international affairs MA grad currently working as a research assistant in the Brookings Institution's foreign policy program. I've been at Brookings for a little over a year, and since this forum was a major resource for me when I was considering grad school and career paths, I thought I'd offer myself up if anyone has questions about careers in the think tank world.

A few points, to start: many of my classmates would have killed for an internship at Brookings, let alone a job here, and my own conceptions of Brookings were so far away from the reality. Brookings is an incredible place-I love most aspects of my job and the people I work with-but if you're taking on grad school debt hoping to have a "career" at a think tank, you might want to seriously reconsider your choices. So many grad schools boast of "placing" graduates at places like Brookings, but in many ways I would have been far better off had I worked here before or instead of getting an MA than I am now.

Edited February 11, 2016 by fpindc

[publicaffairsstudent]

How many people work there?

What kind of work do you do there? How do you perform research? Do you use research methods, or is it more akin to essay writing.

How much of an emphasis on quantitative methods is there at Brookings? Do you have quant teams?

[monocle]

Where did you go for your MA? Do you think the location affected your job opportunity at Brookings significantly? 

What were your conceptions vs. reality?

Glassdoor says a research assistant at Brookings should expect to make about 42k/year. It doesn't differentiate between those who have master's vs bachelor's. Do you have colleagues who got the assistantship without an MA? Do you happen to know what the salary differences are? (Basically why did you say you would be far better off if you didnt get an MA)

[kaseyleigh]

Hi! Thanks for your post and willingness to help! I am super interested in research at a think tank, but recently spoke on the phone to a deputy director of a program at one of the major think tanks and it sounded to me like you can't advance super far in a think tank unless you 1. have a PhD or 2. worked as a senior government official first. Do you find that to be the case? I am applying for a one-year mid-career master's because I already hold a JD and, since I only have one year if I get in, I will have to make the most of my internships. It sounded to me like I would be better served getting a government internship rather than a think tank internship because of this (I can work my way up in government and then switch over to higher level think tank work later). What do you think about that? Does this ring true for you? 

[kbui]

This is a really insightful post. How did you get to your position at the Brookings Institution? And do you think if you weren't persuing your MA and don't live where you live and know who you know during your graduate school experience, you would still be in the same position now? Or do you think the area and people who you met were more instrumental than the MA in itself?

[fpindc]

On 2/11/2016 at 10:40 PM, publicaffairsstudent said:

How many people work there?

What kind of work do you do there? How do you perform research? Do you use research methods, or is it more akin to essay writing.

How much of an emphasis on quantitative methods is there at Brookings? Do you have quant teams?

There are about 60-70 staff in my program at Brookings excluding fellows-includes research staff as well as admin, finance, development and communications. Foreign Policy is the biggest of our five programs but others are structured similarly.

Very little quantitative research in FP if any. I really just do qualitative research and writing. More in our other programs.

Edited February 27, 2016 by fpindc

[fpindc]

On 2/11/2016 at 0:07 AM, monocle said:

Where did you go for your MA? Do you think the location affected your job opportunity at Brookings significantly? 

What were your conceptions vs. reality?

Glassdoor says a research assistant at Brookings should expect to make about 42k/year. It doesn't differentiate between those who have master's vs bachelor's. Do you have colleagues who got the assistantship without an MA? Do you happen to know what the salary differences are? (Basically why did you say you would be far better off if you didnt get an MA)

There aren't enough of us that I can specify where I went without giving myself away, but I will say that my location in no way impacted my ability to get my job. Networks help and I think most of the schools outside of DC have networks in DC as strong as SAIS/Georgetown. I got my job through a combination of luck (applying online among the masses) and networking (met fellows before position opened up).

Salaries at Brookings are terrible. Having a MA maybe gets you another $2/3k-not nearly enough to make up for grad school loans. I should also add that prestige of MA matters hardly at all at Brookings. I have as many coworkers from one year overseas programs/lower ranked schools as I do people from the top programs.

Brookings is a fantastic place in terms of the research work the institution puts out and the fellows you can work with, but you really max out your responsibility level after a year. Most RAs stay 2-3 yrs, a few less/longer, but promotions are name only and growth opportunities practically nonexistent. I think it's a great place to work right after undergrad before going to grad school but less valuable afterwards. That being said, so many people want to work here that the norm does tend to be that people are hired after grad school and with several years of experience.

On 2/15/2016 at 2:40 PM, kaseyleigh said:

Hi! Thanks for your post and willingness to help! I am super interested in research at a think tank, but recently spoke on the phone to a deputy director of a program at one of the major think tanks and it sounded to me like you can't advance super far in a think tank unless you 1. have a PhD or 2. worked as a senior government official first. Do you find that to be the case? I am applying for a one-year mid-career master's because I already hold a JD and, since I only have one year if I get in, I will have to make the most of my internships. It sounded to me like I would be better served getting a government internship rather than a think tank internship because of this (I can work my way up in government and then switch over to higher level think tank work later). What do you think about that? Does this ring true for you? 

Upward mobility is practically nonexistent in the think tank world-at least, when you are hoping to go from research assistant to fellow. You definitely need either a PhD or a very prestigious government career behind you. Also, most internships are targeted towards undergraduates-grad school students end up in them just because lots of people wanting a place like Brookings on their resume means that people hiring interns can take grad students over undergrads, but the level of responsibility is extremely low. Also, jobs open up so scarcely that it's practically impossible to go straight from intern to staff. If you're looking for a career track, government is definitely the way to go.

On 2/15/2016 at 3:12 PM, kbui said:

This is a really insightful post. How did you get to your position at the Brookings Institution? And do you think if you weren't persuing your MA and don't live where you live and know who you know during your graduate school experience, you would still be in the same position now? Or do you think the area and people who you met were more instrumental than the MA in itself?

I got my job through mostly luck-I applied online, and had met some Brookings fellows in the past who I was able to reach out to, which I think helped me make the first cut. Some people get jobs here without having met anyone at the company, others are former interns (likely people who interned a year or so before coming back), others are internal hires. If I could have done things differently, I would have preferred to have my job before spending time and money on grad school, because I think experience matters quite a bit in DC. I only had about a year, year and a half of full time work and a summer internship on my resume coming out of grad school, and I have coworkers now that are at my title level, don't have a MA, and are 2/3 years younger than me. It's tricky because I do think that many fellows prefer MA candidates when they are hiring, but I think the best way to get into a place like Brookings is to intern during undergrad/straight after, make a good impression, and get hired early as a researcher or coordinator. You get a lot more out of this job if you haven't gone to grad school yet, whereas people like me get stuck, because we can't move up to the fellow level and can't use grad school as a means of making a career switch.

Edited February 27, 2016 by fpindc