Some jobs have straightforward requirements. If you want to be a doctor, you head to medical school. If you’ve set your sights on becoming a lawyer, you’ll need to enroll in law school.
But professionals can come from a wide variety of backgrounds and wind up doing development work. Take World Bank President Jim Yong Kim — a physician by training, he’s now managing a multibillion dollar multilateral institution.
Chuck Chopak, vice president of technical services at DAI, had a similar circuitous route to his current work after studying biology and sociology at Tulane University. Confused about what to do with his dual degrees after graduation, he ended up working on an aquaculture project in northern Senegal under the U.S. government’s Peace Corps program.