International Relations Alumni Profiles:

Gary Butterworth, Class of 2004

I’m Gary Butterworth. I’m originally from Blackwood, NJ—the Philadelphia suburbs. I graduated with a BA in IR (topic concentration in Foreign Policy Studies and geographic focus on Europe) in August 2004. I minored in Public Communications Studies in Newhouse and completed the requirements for the Undergraduate Certificate in Contemporary Europe. I spent my last full semester in Strasbourg brushing up on my French and interning in the Directorate of Communications and Research of the Council of Europe, where I was responsible for writing a weekly news release. The summer before my final year at Syracuse, I interned independently in the Persian television service of the Voice of America in Washington. I was offered a job there at the end of that summer, but I thought it better to finish my degree and, unfortunately, the job couldn’t wait for that. While at Syracuse, I was also a Resident Advisor in Sadler Hall, an Arts and Sciences Student Peer Advisor, and I was active in UUTV (now HillTV).

I finished school in June and, after a few interviews, I received my first job offer in early September. I applied for jobs all over the US and abroad, but without question I had the most luck in the Washington, DC area. I work for the POLICY II Project. It’s a collaboration of three private consulting firms that has a USAID contract to improve reproductive health conditions in the developing world by helping host country governments formulate better policies. I’m the “Program Associate for HIV/AIDS.” It’s a standard entry-level, professional development position, so my work is far from glamorous. I spend the majority of my time performing administrative backup to regional managers, all of whom have PhDs. But I do get to tinker with some technical work from time to time and there is even some talk about me possibly attending a conference in South Africa this spring that I have been helping to organize.

I’m taking the Foreign Service exam in April and I know that sooner rather than later grad school (or/and maybe the Peace Corps) will come calling, but for now I’m in a good place to get my feet wet and see how fairly large-scale development projects take shape in the international arena.