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Eva’s journey has taken her from Amsterdam to Oxford, through fieldwork in Kenya, and into The Hague. She reflects on how these chapters - and an early leap into working in the public sector - shaped her wish to pair economic rigour with real-world impact.
Eva van Soerland

What stands out when you look back on your PPLE years?

Looking back at PPLE, I mostly think of the community and the way we all tried to support each other during the course. The PPLE-workload is high, but I genuinely enjoyed most of the PPLE-courses and the feeling that you are all working together and help each other, inside and outside the classroom, really helps. This is true for the students, but also for the professors and tutors. I also felt that I learned a lot from the different assignment formats such as essays, presentations and group assignments with creative twists. These all let you train different valuable skills that all helped me later on. During PPLE, I especially enjoyed writing my thesis, as it allowed me to bring a lot of the knowledge of the last years together.

What did you do right after graduating in 2022?

After graduating I felt that I wasn’t done learning and went to the University of Oxford for a one-year Master’s called ‘Economics for Development’. At PPLE, I had chosen the Economics & Business major, but I knew I wanted to continue having an interdisciplinary and ‘impact’-angle. The year at Oxford was academically challenging but luckily allowed me to seek that extra in-debt knowledge I wanted. It was also a great place to meet a lot of new smart and inspiring people from all over the world. After I was finished with my degree in Oxford, I had the opportunity to do an internship and spend the summer months in Kenya to see some of the research I had read about up close.

How did you make the move to the Dutch government?

Coming out of my Master’s, I knew I wanted my work to feel like it added to society, but I wasn’t yet sure where my skills would fit best. A friend of mine told me about the different traineeships that the Dutch government offers, and it felt like a great opportunity to experience different roles in the government early on.

Starting in government at only 22 brought a steep learning curve, which also meant that it sometimes really pushed me beyond my comfort zone. During my traineeship, I started at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the department of Sustainable Economic Development and later rotated to the Ministry of Finance where I worked in the International Financial Institutions team. These first two rotations gave me insight into both the policy, political and budgetary sides of development policy and multilateralism.

And what do you do now?

I am currently in the last rotation of my traineeship and work in the Public Investment Management team of FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank.

The multicultural environment of PPLE and the knowledge of different fields that PPLE brought me have allowed me to adapt swiftly to new work challenges in all these different work environments and have helped me to work well with different stakeholders.

What is your advice to (future) PPLE students who want to follow in your footsteps?

If you plan on doing a Master’s degree, start with a to-do list for applications early on and give yourself plenty of time to work through it: Collecting references and studying for tests can’t be done within a day. I also believe it is good to realize that this is the path that worked out for me, but there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ career path. If you want to take a break before doing a Master’s or not do a Master’s degree at all, to pursue other interests that is totally fine too.

Also, I would say stay open to changing direction and not put too much pressure on yourself to fine the perfect fit for next steps - only very few people find their forever role right away, or like their Master’s degree the full 100%. View any detours as just part of discovering what suits you best. This is how, in the end, you’ll find your place.