Life after aid work: When the ground begins to shake

A vague career roadmap I drafted after finishing my master’s in the late ‘80s had me ending up as a history professor. Having grown up in India and wanting to stay engaged in South Asian issues, the ivory tower seemed the most logical and easily realized option.

But chance intervened. In early 1988, I ditched my academic future in favor of a job offer from the United Nations. Within the span of a few months I went from having only a vague notion that “aid work” was a job category to heading up a large urban refugee program in Pakistan. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what a fluke it had been — to land a job in one of the more “sexy” careers in the world on my first attempt without so much as a face-to-face interview.