Postcard from Duke: A Hertie School Exchange Experience

Hertie School Master of Public Policy students Jakob Ludwig Albrecht and Amal Zahra took their academic journey beyond Berlin and pursued a semester abroad at Duke University. In this blog post, they share the highlights of their exchange semester, and reflect on the challenges, rewards, and insights gained from studying in a unique academic setting.

Q: What motivated you to choose Duke University for your exchange semester?

Amal: I picked Hertie for my master's due to the ability to study abroad in America during the program; living in two countries and studying at two top policy schools was an incredible opportunity. Duke was my first choice for studying abroad because I wanted to take climate science courses to enrich my sustainability specialization at Hertie. I also wanted to immerse myself in a true American college experience which Duke offered with its strong school spirit and breathtakingly beautiful campus.

Jakob: I really wanted to go to the United States for my exchange semester - especially with the 2024 Presidential election coming up. Duke’s academic offer aligned perfectly with my interests and offered great courses and inspiring professors. Getting a chance to experience the “American way of life” beyond big cities like New York or Los Angeles, but instead in a mid-sized city like Durham in North Carolina was something I didn’t want to miss.

Q: How did studying at Duke differ from Hertie, both academically and socially?

Amal: I found my courses at Duke to be challenging but rewarding. I was taking three out of four of my courses at the Nicholas School of Environment and my coursework was science heavy. I enjoyed the rigor of my classes and found students to be eager to participate in class discussions. Aside from this, I found the social experience at Duke to be remarkable! American students were incredibly warm, friendly, and helpful. The students at Sanford were particularly outgoing and always eager to socialize, which made adjusting easy. Duke was celebrating its centennial year during our exchange and I also got to attend an Ed Sheeran concert on campus which was very fun! The semester was packed with exciting new experiences, and by finals I felt like I had been there for years. I left America knowing I had made memories and friendships that would last me a lifetime.

Jakob: Despite the size of Duke University itself, the Sanford School of Public Policy, where I spent most of my time, felt surprisingly familiar. Like Hertie, it’s a small, close-knit policy school where I’d constantly run into friends on the hallway going from one classroom to another. Beyond Sanford, Duke’s massive campus felt like a city of its own with its own Duke spirit, people everywhere wearing the Duke Blue merchandise and cheering for one of the many Duke sports teams on the weekend.

Academically, there were a lot more smaller assignments throughout the semester than the few major assignments and exams we normally have in courses at Hertie.

Q: What was your favorite course during your semester at Duke, and why?

Amal: My favorite course was on Energy and the Environment. The course had a great deal of physics (which I had not studied since high school), so it required extra effort on my part. I found the TA to be helpful and figured out how to best go about studying for the course eventually. The course helped me understand the science behind energy policy and I really enjoyed the professor’s passion for the course.

Jakob: My favorite class at Duke was a class called “Wellbeing Economics.” This class did not only ask, “how do we do good policymaking?” but also, “What are we building towards when we make policy? What kind of society do we want to live in?” On a theoretical and philosophical level, it’s been very inspiring to be in the class and I hope it made me become a better policymaker.

Q: What are some challenges you experienced during your exchange semester?

Amal: The city lacked pedestrian and cycling infrastructure so my commute to and from university was challenging. My area was connected (poorly) by the Duke Line and this led to me having to take quite a lot of Ubers, especially at night. In addition to this, the lack of mobility made getting groceries challenging and I used an app to deliver them to my house. My life felt restricted to campus, and I relied on my friends to get around to off-campus events. This was a change from my life in Lahore and Berlin and took some adjusting to. I’d recommend factoring this in while making your decision to attend Duke and living as near to campus as possible.

Jakob: I think something I had to get used to after living in Berlin for four years was the logistics of getting around in a medium-sized American city. Compared to Berlin, public transport was limited and I didn’t have a car, so sometimes it would be hard to get around or out of town. At the same time, I got to appreciate Durham’s slower pace and beautiful nature. But I won’t lie: being able to hop on a subway in Berlin every four minutes is something I appreciate a lot more now.

Q: How has your exchange experience influenced your future academic or career goals?

Amal: My interest in working in climate policy came from witnessing record-high levels of poor air quality in my hometown of Lahore, Pakistan. I was interested in better understanding the health impacts of air quality and was able to learn directly from faculty who had worked in the EPA. My course on Air Quality Management gave me a science-based understanding of smog and helped me better understand the policy implementation failure in my hometown. This learning will help me get more involved in working with people tackling this crisis on the ground.

Jakob: Being at Duke and in the US during election season illustrated the importance of politics for policymaking to me. Before going to Duke, I was planning on a career in the private sector, I can also definitely see myself working in politics more directly itself.

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Curious where your studies at Hertie could take you? Learn more about studying abroad here.