Master students FGGA receive diploma
On 13 June 2017, twenty-three master students of the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs were handed their diploma. They graduate on subjects related to public management and policy, some focussing on security and terrorism. Alumna Hannah Joosse: ‘I am happy that I can apply the knowledge gained during my master Crisis and Security Management on practical policy questions.’
Students of the maters Public Administration, Management of the Public Sector and Crisis and Security Management graduate and receive their diploma. One of them, Hannah Joosse, completed the bachelor of history in Utrecht and transferred to Leiden for her master degree. ‘I wanted to do a programme that is more applicable to practice, and that was certainly the case for Crisis and Security Management. As a lot of things happen in the field of security and terrorism, I found the link between the programme and reality very good. Every week, we deal with recent events and I have learned a lot from those.
Research and practice
Joosse researched Western women who tweeted positively on Islamic State. The title of her thesis is Tweeting about Cats and Cookies? The online female jihad. For her thesis, she investigated the subjects of tweets by these women. Right now, she works as policy officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the field of terrorism. Joosse: ‘I think that academia and reality are sometimes very far apart from each other. However, I have been working here for half a year now and I find that, in a broad sense, I can apply the things I have learned within my field. In my work, I contribute to policy that (in)directly influences our society. That is very interesting.’
Graduation ceremony
The festive graduation ceremony for the master students took place in Leiden. ‘I am actually looking forward to it,’ says Joosse, ‘because although I already started working, I see it as a conclusion of my time as a student; a time during which I had a lot of fun.’ All the graduates followed their classes in The Hague, but came to the historical Academy Building in Leiden for the ceremony, together with their supervisors. The cosy ceremony took place in the small Auditorium, just above the ‘sweating room’ (zweetkamertje), and was led by Assistant Professor Johan Christensen. With Willem of Orange immortalised on the white canvas and observing from the background, the new alumni received the testimonial after a brief personal speech from their thesis supervisor.