Hometown: Monroe, CT & Storrs Mansfield, CT
Alma mater: University of Connecticut (UConn)
Undergraduate Degree(s): BA – Sociology, BS – Psychological Sciences, BA – Individualized: Criminal Behavior. Minors in Literary Translation and Public Policy
Q: What are your areas of interest in the program or career goals?
Through the MPA program, I hope to gain further leadership experience in the public sector and understand the best management practices for government-based agencies. I aspire to work in law enforcement with a long-term goal of working in leadership. Along the way, I will use research to back my decision-making to increase equity, reduce corruption, and make our communities a safer place for all to call home.
Q: How did you discover the MPA degree?
My undergraduate studies (both inside the classroom and in professional experiences) allowed me to explore and identify pressing problems in government and society as a whole – it became clear to me that the next step is to learn how to properly address these issues. Pursuing a Master of Public Administration allows me to bridge theory with practice and provides me with the flexibility to gain professional experience while furthering my studies.
Q: Why did you decide to get your MPA at UNC?
I originally did not think that UNC would be my home for the next two years until attending Admitted Students Day in March, and there were many reasons that led to my decision. First, a state as large as North Carolina allows for collaboration on all levels of government – Connecticut doesn’t have county government, so even that is a big change for me. I also chose UNC as the School of Government has a strong emphasis on practical experience and professionalism, both through employment and the mentorship program. The final selling point for me was both hearing and seeing how tight knit the cohorts are; community is a huge factor for me and I’m glad I am finding mine here!
Q: What are you reading/listening to this summer?
I’m a big fan of graphic novels, so I’m currently re-reading Daytripper by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. I listen to a lot of music and I’d like to believe that I have a very diverse taste – anything from folk, indie, country, or even Brazilian pop. This summer, some of the many artists I’ve had on repeat are Chance Peña, Noah Kahan, Cody Carnes, Remi Wolf, Tyler Childers, Hans Williams, and Wilderado.
Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: After I graduated from Drew University with a Poli Sci major/History minor, I was trying to choose between government work and a graduate degree in history. I went to work for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. From there I was an intern for the Governor of New York which led to a job with NY State Assembly in the Environmental Conservation Committee as a Committee Clerk. I knew at that point my public service interests were leading me to continue government work. I looked around and applied to graduate school. I was drawn to UNC-Chapel Hill because of the strong alumni network and small size of the program.
In retrospect, the Program’s focus on organizational behavior gave me a framework for how to think about people and institutions. The MPA program taught about how organizational structure influences the way that work gets done and the experiences of employees. While at UNC, I applied for and was successful in getting a Presidential Management Internship (now Presidential Management Fellowship – PMF) with the federal government. Through an UNC MPA alumni at US EPA, my resume ended up on the desk of the man who became my boss and mentor for many years. I have enjoyed tackling air pollution problems at the Agency for nearly 30 years. Reducing emissions of soot, smog, and toxic air pollution in neighborhoods improves people’s health and quality of life. I didn’t expect to work at the federal level when I started graduate school but my two years at UNC broadened my interests and perspective, and I was open to new things.
Q: Have you pursued/attained any other degrees since your MPA?
A: Not degrees but I’ve taken a number of leadership classes/fellowships. One through the Brookings Institute and one through the USDA Grad School. I’ve worked on Capitol Hill twice through those fellowships. I also took classes at Duke on the science of air pollution soon after I started at US EPA.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Definitely. Working on air pollution issues for the federal government, public service is the core of what I do now. Serving the American people is incredibly important to me, and I certainly developed and refined my sense of what public service meant to me while in the MPA program at Carolina.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: I credit the excellent professors in writing, organizational development, ethics, and communications. It gave me the tools and foundation for exactly the work I do now. The UNC MPA provided access to an amazing network of classmates, alum, and pipeline of talented students, some of whom have become colleagues at US EPA.
Q: Have you been able to fulfill goals formulated while in the MPA program? If so, how?
A: The MPA program informed my public service journey. The PWE gave great appreciation for direct service and economic development work in small communities in western NC. While it seems far away from the work I do now, it was actually the foundation for my current work . Commitment to making sure that people in neighborhoods and rural areas can breathe clean air is rooted in the experience I had in the summer between my first and second year in grad school. I learned lessons about how to communicate effectively with people in crisis. I give a lot of credit to my classmates as well. After that summer of PWE, we all came back and shared stories about what we had been through, comparing experiences. Having smart peers and professors who could help dissect why things worked and didn’t work was really helpful in processing and learning. It helped us tackle issues and potential solutions from a lot of different angles. I am grateful for the support that the MPA program offers to students and alum at all stages of our careers.
Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: I started out pursuing a career in clinical social work. I studied social work in undergrad at the University of Georgia and worked in a program supporting grandparents who were raising their grandchildren in the rural counties surrounding Athens, GA, and got my first experiences in research looking at barriers to graduation for high schoolers in the area. I then moved to North Carolina where I received my MSW from the School of Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill. While at the School of Social Work, I worked as a graduate research assistant on the early stages of a study looking at substance use trajectories among biracial adolescents and adults. I supervised research assistants, helped lead area trainings, and contributed to a successful NIH grant application. I also served as a clinical social work intern on an assertive community treatment team in Chapel Hill. In this role I worked on a multidisciplinary team to provide in-home treatment and support groups to promote independent living in the community for persons with serious and persistent mental illness.
I left that experience with great respect for folks in direct practice social work, but pretty quickly realized that systems level change, program evaluation, and research best fit my skillset. I knew I still had a knowledge gap, as I wanted to continue to hone my research and management skills and better understand good government, That led me to pursue my MPA at UNC. Throughout the program, I worked for UNC MPA Alum Kristin Siebenaler who (at that time) was Deputy Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program’s National Program Office. She had experience in the federal government and was a big part of helping me see that as a career option. (I even stayed with her sister when I interviewed in DC.) Seeing and writing about the about the research done by the clinical scholars also helped drive my interest in health policy. I also continued to work on my research and communication skills throughout the MPA program, both through coursework, my professional work experience, and some short term work with School of Government professors.
I had never heard of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), but luckily learned about it from Maureen Berner. I was able to pursue a position on GAO’s health care team right after I graduated, which was a great fit for my social work background, drive for public service, interest in research, and desire to make government work better and more efficiently for the people it serves. I have spent the past 9 years developing objective, nonpartisan, fact-based reports and congressional testimonies on a range of health care related topics. I also recently completed a two year detail supporting the head of the health care team, including managing our reporting to Congress about our spending on audits related to COVID-19, developing presentations about our pandemic work for auditors from other countries, and revamping our internal awards process.
Q: Have you pursued/attained any other degrees since your MPA?
A: No. As noted above, I attained my MSW prior to applying to the MPA program. The way we do our work at GAO means I get to deep dive into a different topic for a year or two at a time. It continually meets my passion for learning and keeps me from going back to school.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Definitely. I think the UNC MPA is well known for how It can prepare you for work in local government, but it applies to the federal government as well. My agency is full of public servants conducting program evaluations to make government better, which pull directly from the skillset that an MPA helps students develop.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: I get to work as a generalist and lead evaluations on a variety of health care related federal programs and policies, ranging from how mental health parity laws have been enforced to how the VA ensures that its medical centers appropriately review a doctor’s care if quality or safety concerns arise. The MPA program prepared me for this role in a variety of ways, largely by providing foundational or fundamental knowledge of government budgeting, organizational leadership, and thinking more systematically about what makes good government and the importance of public service values. Understanding research methods and developing a full research project from design to report during the program helped me better understand research and project management than past positions I had, where I was only able to assist on smaller segments of a research project. The cohort model and the team-based projects really helped prepare me for the type of work I do where everything is team based and relationship building and trust are incredibly important for getting the information we need from the agencies we’re auditing. The ample opportunities to hone both written and oral communication skills were also incredibly important in helping prepare me to speak to or write for a variety of audiences.
Q: Have you been able to fulfill goals formulated while in the MPA program? If so, how?
A: I think I am still working on it! I had lofty goals of improving health policy and programs for the folks with mental illness that I used to work with and just generally making government programs work better. I got really lucky in finding a job and an agency that aligned with my goals and my values. I’m proud of the work I’ve done so far and some of the program and policy changes that have been made as a result, but there is still a long way to go.
Captain Julia Farinas has built a career around helping the underrepresented. After getting her bachelor’s in history at Loyola University in New Orleans and attending law school at Tulane University, Farinas discovered a passion for advocacy at the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights (LCCR), a nonprofit organization that provides holistic legal representation for children caught up in the justice system.
Three years of hard but rewarding work with LCCR convinced her that she wanted a career in public service. “A lot of lawyers go to work at big firms to make a lot of money. I knew that wasn’t my personality.”
After her formative nonprofit experience, Farinas went on active duty with the military, where she continued to advocate for the underserved, moving from base to base in a variety of positions, including two years as a legal representative for victims of sexual assault. She never forgot about her ultimate goal to return to her hometown of New Orleans and work in child advocacy for nonprofits.
“My work in New Orleans made me realize that you have the largest impact on the most people when you’re working in public service.”
“In the army you get a lot of experience and you see a lot of things, but the foundational nonprofit work that I had done in NOLA is something I’ve always wanted to go back to,” she says. “In a perfect world, I think a lot of nonprofits would be obsolete, because basic goods and services would be available to everyone regardless of grant funding.”
“My work in New Orleans made me realize that you have the largest impact on the most people when you’re working in public service.”
Farinas’s experience in the nonprofit world gave her a firm understanding of the internal workings of organizations, how they succeed, and how they interact with government agencies. “Understanding how the money works is really what made me want an MPA. A lot of the other logistics you can learn from on-the-ground training, but there is an aspect of budget, finance, and grant writing that you can’t learn as you go.”
Being a lawyer gave her experience in many areas but one: leadership. “A JD program, in a lot of ways, teaches you how to be a technician,” she says. “You know how to put together a case; you know how to analyze facts and the law. But that doesn’t relate to how to deal with people, how to manage people, how to supervise, how to budget, along with other supervisory tasks that are required of leaders. That’s what the MPA program has done for me, and it’s why I sought it out.”
Farinas firmly believes that an MPA is crucial for those with juris doctor degrees and big dreams. “There is no lawyer I know who says: ‘I just want to try cases and stay in the same place my whole career.’ Everyone wants an upward trajectory, and that’s what the MPA program is doing for me.”
“There is no lawyer I know who says: ‘I just want to try cases and stay in the same place my whole career.’ Everyone wants an upward trajectory, and that’s what the MPA program is doing for me.”
When Farinas decided to support her goal by pursuing a Master of Public Administration, UNC was already at the top of her list.
“Everyone at Fort Bragg spoke highly of the program because it’s focused on government service,” she says, citing the high number of UNC School of Government graduates at Fort Bragg as how she learned about the MPA program. “Many army leaders have also recommended the program to me.”
As an active duty lawyer, the flexibility of an online program was crucial for Farinas. It was also important to her to get a degree “from a reputable place, from a well-known recognizable institution. UNC’s program was far and away the best one that fit my criteria.”
“Everyone at Fort Bragg spoke highly of the program because it’s focused on government service. Many army leaders have also recommended the program to me.”
She says that the UNC online MPA program has already improved her skills. “I’m up for a promotion in the army this year from senior captain to major, so I’ll be in upper management. Being in the MPA program is a huge advantage for me and has given me the confidence to serve people well.”
At UNC, Farinas is learning exactly what she needs to know to synthesize her past work experiences and take her career to the next level. She takes classes on a schedule that works for her busy life. “My main goal in this program was not to just complete the program but to learn the information.”
As a full-time active duty working mother, Farinas advises students to manage their time. “I would tell anyone coming into the program to manage their expectations that there will be a time deficit,” she says. She praises the program’s synchronous classes, saying, “I would never do an online program that didn’t have synchronous work. Those classes are very useful.”
Farinas had a baby in April 2020, right in the middle of an intense time at work that has continued throughout the pandemic. “The Immediate Response Force was called up out of the 82nd Airborne Division in January 2020 to go to Iraq, and we had 72 hours to push out 3,700 soldiers.” The changes in her personal and work life also coincided with the beginning of the semester.
“It’s my experience that the faculty will bend over backward to help.”
“If I missed class, they were great about making sure I didn’t miss the material. The fact that the professors have a baseline understanding that I am a working parent has been the reason I have been able to continue with the program through COVID, with a new baby, and with work being insane. It’s my experience that the faculty will bend over backward to help,” Farinas says.