SPIA Students Explore Careers in Local Government on New York Trip

Protecting communities from natural disasters, ensuring people have housing, creating pathways to economic success: These are all major policy challenges of international scale. Indeed, many Princeton School of Public and International Affairs students aspire to tackle them at the highest global levels.

But these are also local issues, ones that individuals working in municipal governments such as New York City grapple with every day.

Princeton SPIA students traveled to New York last month to learn about potential careers in local government and the direct impact they can have. Elena Conde MPA ’27, who began her career in international development and is now deputy chief of staff at the New York City Office of the Mayor, spoke alongside Princeton SPIA alumni on a panel about working for the city.

“What brought me to the local level, despite loving travel and working across cultures, is just how much you really can see the impact you’re having every day,” said Conde, who is taking a break from her graduate program to work for Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “I love that local politics is extremely relational. The stakeholders that you’re working with are people you will bump into on the street or in a coffee shop.”

Students also heard from Jessica Colon MPA ’07, director of policy and planning for the Bureau of Coastal Resilience at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, who facilitated the panel; Caroline Hays MPA ’23, senior advisor for climate and housing at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice; and Andre Vasilyev MPA ’22, assistant director of economic development at the New York City Office of the Comptroller. All panelists spoke in their personal capacities and not as representatives of their offices.

They offered practical tips for how to work in local government and shared how they started their careers.

“People will stick around, especially in city work. All of the networking you’re doing, even if it’s not leading to that specific role, will be helpful over time,” Hays said.

Vasilyev suggested finding out more about individual roles before applying to make sure that they are a fit. 

“The best questions you can ask are the ones that are very specific: What is your day-to-day work like? What’s the output of your work? Who interacts with it? What are you managing?” he said.

Colon suggested that, in addition to roles at mayor’s offices, students should also look at jobs at various municipal agencies and through the civil service.

One student asked the panel how they advance policy objectives in challenging environments. Conde and Hays emphasized the value of incremental progress.

“When we talk about a goal like climate resilience for New York City, for example, that's too big of a goal to start working toward. So how do you break that down into very specific things that you can advance," Hays said. “It’s also about having the foresight to think, what is the seed of the thing we can get started on now that, in 10 or 15 years, is going to start to bloom.”

Mohamad Moslimani MPA ’26 said he found the discussion to be inspirational and helpful.

“The alumni provided great feedback on what to expect out of the application process and what aspects of the MPA program they found most useful,” Moslimani said. “It was interesting to hear from Caroline Hays how often she used concepts from her class on negotiations. Having taken the class myself, I can’t wait to see how I can use it when I graduate.”

The panel was part of a daylong visit to the city that also included a conversation with alumni who work at the United Nations, individual coffee chats that paired students and alumni based on interest, and a networking event for students and area alumni.

Princeton SPIA alumni speak on a panel about working for New York City.

From left to right: Jessica Colon MPA ’07; Andre Vasilyev MPA ’22; Caroline Hays MPA ’23; Elena Conde MPA
’27.

Photo by Ambreen Ali