Program Assistant Introduction: Colby Dorcély '25!

Colby Dorcély is a Masters of International Affairs second year international student from Haiti. He is a Climate, Energy & Environment concentrator and specializes in Leadership, Innovation & Design student with a focus on renewable energy finance and international development. He is a University of the Ozarks ’23 graduate, earning a dual B.S degree in Business Administration and Political Science. Throughout his undergraduate studies, Colby has gained experience in multiple fields of interest at companies like Aviation Sans Frontières in Paris and Infineon Technologies in Washington DC. Following graduation, Colby wants to pursue a career in project finance, ESG investing or consulting.

What attracted you to SIPA and Columbia University?

To be completely honest, up to the month before I applied to SIPA, I was rather lost in the path I wanted to follow. I am an international student from Haiti who came to the US as a college freshman in 2020 and started at SIPA in 2023. My answer to being attracted to SIPA and Columbia overall is unconventional. I forged a path for myself in college that allowed me to gain experiences in various fields, and through them, I was able to narrow down the list of fields in which I saw an ideal career. It was during my DC summer going into senior year, that I made the realization that I no longer desired to pursue a law degree and acknowledged a newfound passion for energy policy. The months that followed were pivotal in the sense that I conducted research about further education in the field, found and visited SIPA, and fell in love with the campus. 

What are you most excited about at SIPA?

SIPA is ever-evolving and the experience here is what you make of it. If I was asked this question a year ago, I would have mentioned being excited about all the classes I planned on taking, the research opportunities and whatnot. Now? Nothing excites me more than being on this journey with my friends and the community as a whole. It is truly magical and they have made it so enjoyable, fun and fulfilling. A good portion of my friends were away for the summer while I had to stay in NYC and it felt like a part of me was missing. The beginning of second-year brought back all the joy I was missing in the summer and it is all thanks to being around these people again and just navigating policy school together. 

What has been the most challenging part of your SIPA experience?

Time management. We are in New York. There is so much going on, lots of interesting classes, talks, events both on and off campus, people to meet and valuable experiences to gain. One person can only take on so much. That has caused me take a step back at multiple occasions so I could prioritize my commitments in a way that allowed me to benefit the most from each day I get to spend as a member of this resourceful community while leaving enough time for myself and my hobbies.

What has your internship experience been like?

This past summer I had the incredible opportunity to join the Trust for Governors Island’s Real Estate Development team as a Climate Programs Summer Associate. As they launched a Water Abundance Challenge over the past year where they offered some areas of the island as a piloting site for new clean air and water solutions, I gained exposure to a lot of new technologies and was able to deepen my knowledge of blue tech. I enjoyed that it directly related to my studies and allowed me to apply some of what I had learned in the classroom during my first year to real-life scenarios. I am still interning with the Trust as they extended my offer through the end of the Fall semester. On the side, I also interned part-time with the US Campaign for Burma as a Research Assistant over the summer and now work with them on their digital campaigns on a consultancy basis. And last, I will soon be joining the digital strategy team at Tetra Tech until graduation. With them, I will have the opportunity to work on a variety of consulting and engineering projects of my choosing relating to energy, water and infrastructure challenges among others.

What kind of work do you hope to do when you graduate?

This question scares me a bit. My time at SIPA has completely changed my initial interests. Being surrounded by peers coming from different backgrounds, taking classes that exposed me to the many subfields of my main interest and networking with alumni and experts from all sides of the industry have had their effects. While I surely will remain in the energy sector, I switched out my policy focus for a finance one. So the work I hope to do when I graduate ranges in the lines of Project Finance, ESG and Consulting which are quite different from my policy experience that led me to SIPA in the first place. I think that is one of the coolest parts of being at SIPA because despite being Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, it helps prepare its students to take what they learned from SIPA to careers outside of the policy sector.