While at Georgia Tech, Nam obtained essential work experience in DC interning on "the Hill" and with The Nature Conservancy. However, she mostly credits the SGA Sustainability Committee and being an RA with giving her the project management and empathy skills that have played a key role in every job she has had.
Piece of advice: "Don't underestimate your ability to learn completely new skills! For example coding was initially scary for me and I felt like I was horrible at it. But it turns out that I had the wrong mindset about what being 'good' at coding looks like and the R skills we learned in Public Policy were a great springboard to learning other tools after graduating! Many of the skills-based classes I thought were boring in college turned out to the most interesting in the work place when I got to apply them to problems that mattered to me."
Feel free to reach out to Nam if you have an interest in environmental work and are still figuring out which sector you want to work in and how to get more involved! Her email is namkolla@gmail.com
Nam joined Vulcan to work on the Skylight project, which alerts enforcement authorities when vessels may be illegally fishing in their area. Prior to Vulcan, she worked for the City of Seattle as a Data Scientist, evaluated international development grants for the Gates Foundation, and worked in marketing and business development for a green start-up.
