Back in May 2024 during the Career Fair, I also had the chance to talk to another speaker and alumni, Joel Petersson Ivre , a current Policy Fellow at Asia-Pacific Leadership Network . In this interview, we will get to hear his stories and experiences from Yonsei GSIS to his current career.
Interview
- Can you briefly introduce yourself and share your academic background and current work?
- So my name is Joel Petersson Ivre, I’m from Sweden. I did my undergrad in Chinese language at Stockholm University. And then I decided to do my master’s here as a KSP student, so part of the Korean government scholarship program. I came to Korea in 2016. I started Yonsei in 2017 and I graduated in 2020. Because I graduated in the beginning of 2020, it was terrible with the pandemic and everything. I did my thesis, which took me five semesters. After that I did a short internship at the Stockholm Peace Research, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It was very short, but it was very rewarding. Then, I came back to Korea, was doing my freelancing for a while, and then eventually I landed my current job at Asia Pacific Leadership Network, which is an NGO think tank network working against preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Obviously we’re not doing a great job right now, but it’s a very fun and rewarding job. It’s almost exactly what I was hoping to do after I finished my program at GSIS, where I majored in international security and East Asia programs so it’s like perfectly within what I wanted to do, so I’m really happy with it.
2. Looking back, how do you think your time at Yonsei GSIS prepared you for your career? Especially since, you know, your current job is related to your studies
- It really did a lot for me, since it’s very, very closely related to what I was doing. I always keep thinking about the courses I wish I’d taken, such as nuclear weapons-related issues, and I didn’t take enough courses on nuclear weapons, which was an option, so I wish I’d done that. I wish I had studied more about Japanese foreign policy, which is kind of a big blind spot for me, and also Korean history and the history of Korean policy and so on, which I didn’t do enough of. There’s always things I wish I could have done differently, but overall I think it really prepared me very well. I was also part of NOVAsia , which was really useful to just kind of write and edit, and it was something that really played a big part that I put on my CV, and which my boss thought was actually kind of useful, so that’s definitely an activity that is useful.
3. Where are some of the major milestones or achievements in your career that you are particularly proud of? You can just name one.
- So I actually have one, like two weeks from now. It’s a part of a project that I’ve been running on perceptions of nuclear risks in South Korea, Japan, and Australia. It’s a fairly big project that we’ve been running for two years, and I published a fairly big report which was kind of the basis of a conference where we invited scholars from a lot of different countries to basically discuss that report, which was terrifying, but also very fun. And so we have an even bigger report that we’re doing as a kind of capstone for the end, to kind of finish up the whole project. We’re presenting that in an online seminar in two weeks, which will be a fairly big milestone as well.
Conclusion:
We would like to express our appreciation to Joel for coming to Yonsei GSIS and giving a presentation at the Career Fair, arranged by Yonsei GSIS ODAR this semester(Spring 2024). Your journey and knowledge has truly made us curious about our own career paths and we can’t wait to connect with you again soon!
The End
Mason He, Yonsei GSIS, News Reporter
MKH Productions