Career Services Spotlight – Pascale Etienne, MPA ’19, John D. Solomon Fellowship for Public Service

In my final year at Baruch I was fortunate to be accepted as a fellow for the John D. Solomon Fellowship for Public Service. It is the first student fellowship with the city specifically devoted to emergency management. I was accepted with a placement at the New York City Fire Department.

I work on the civilian side of the FDNY, at the Office of Public Information for the Websites and Publications Unit. This is a catch-all for our video, podcasts and internal member information initiative, DiamondPlate. The work that I get to be part of, including writing, shooting and editing, is done in collaboration with active firefighters, EMS and other community stakeholders so as to create clear, concise messages for safety and disaster prevention. Our goal is to use the communication tools and options available to support the mission of the FDNY. I’m lucky because the fellowship is a combination of communications and disaster prevention which is exactly what I want to be learning.

I applied on the NYC Emergency Management website. The application included short answer questions and a resume. Once chosen as a finalist, students would interview with matched participating agencies at NYC Emergency Management in the Spring.

I would suggest interested students take advantage of the University Partnership Program NYC Emergency Management developed to give students exposure to emergency management. The courses entailed an introduction to emergency management in NYC and logistics for emergency management. It was free course series and only took about half the day on a Saturday. I did both of these and listed them on my application. I think doing that program would make your application stand out and demonstrate a real interest in emergency management.