As a sophomore Maggie Joyce ’16 had lined up a course of study to further an interest she’d had since high school – Latin America. As a senior, she had lined up a post-graduation job.
Joyce majored in world politics, with a focus on Latin American studies, and minored in Hispanic studies and economics. She discovered a new interest at Hamilton, delving into security issues, particularly in Latin America, and incorporated the topic into her focus area.
As a rising junior she was accepted into the Open Source Intelligence on Organized Crime and R/N Trafficking in the United States Internship program at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.
As a junior Joyce studied abroad in Buenos Aires through the School for International Training's Social Movements and Human Rights program. She wrote a senior honors thesis about the efficacy of U.S. counternarcotics policies abroad, using a comparative analysis of recent plans for Colombia and Mexico as case studies.
By February of her senior year, Joyce had secured a post-Hamilton job at the security and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, in the Washington, D.C.
“I would definitely say that my studies at Hamilton came together in the way I wanted – initially, I would not have predicted to focus so heavily on security issues within my world politics major, but the open curriculum, flexibility of the major, and the encouragement of professors allowed my studies to adapt to my interests over time,” Joyce says.