Foreign Service Officer
U.S. Embassy, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Heidi Gómez Rápalo spent her childhood summers in her parents' hometown of Tela, Honduras, where she saw, first-hand, her grandparents' and aunts' strong service ethic. Their deep involvement in civic improvement projects to protect the integrity of their coastal environment, as well as the livelihoods of the deeply marginalized garifuna communities that lived there, left a lasting impression.

"Over time, I became increasingly aware of the importance of political freedom and economic opportunity to national development, and I became interested in pursuing a foreign service career focused on developing countries," Heidi says. "I believed it was important to take coursework that not only explained the economic theory behind neo-liberal development economics, but also courses that took into account the social and political impact of economic policy and the need to build strong democratic institutions and a vibrant civil society in tandem with economic reform.

“Princeton’s strong public service ethos is what attracted me to WWS. As an undergraduate, I was selected by the U.S. State Department to participate in the Pickering Fellowship program, which would pay for part of my undergraduate education as well as my first year of graduate education at an APSIA-affiliated (Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs) program. In exchange, I would work for the U.S. Foreign Service for four-and-a-half years upon completion of my master’s degree. The courses and workshops offered at WWS helped develop a skill set that proved relevant to me, which included negotiation, conflict resolution, public speaking, organizational management, statistics, and econometrics.

"I pursued a Master in Public Affairs degree emphasizing analytical skills, which would prepare me for any situation; a knowledge-based program would have limited my experience to a particular region of the world. Although being passionate makes a difference in the world, it is not enough in a world focused on the bottom line. The core curriculum at WWS is designed to equip students with the quantitative skills necessary to define and defend policy that ultimately will improve the lives of people at home and around the world."