By Karen Kelly
Photos by Bryan Gagnon
When Natania Olusanya was looking at university programs, her main priority in selecting a program was broadening her understanding of the world.
“I was looking for something interdisciplinary,” she explains. “I was interested in philosophy, politics, business and the arts— basically critical thinking and expanding my mind. BPAPM combined a lot of things I was interested in.”
While Olusanya chose to specialize in Indigenous studies which sits within the development policy stream, she still took a number of core courses that all BPAPM students take as a group. Her favourite was LAWS 2501 – the law, the state, and the citizen.
“We asked how society works, how government works, and how it functions through policy,” explains Olusanya. “That kind of content really interests me because I want to understand how we can create social change. I want to leave the world knowing that I have made it a better place.”
Olusanya says she has always been interested in how society “should” be run, but BPAPM changed the way she looks at the world.
“It really did make me more grounded and more reasonable about what we can do,” she says. “Before, I would ask, ‘why can’t we just do X or Y?’ Now I can identify the barriers and different perspectives around X and Y from a policy perspective.”
OlusanyaOlusanya is considering a master’s degree that would allow her to continue asking the big questions. Until then, she is building on her co-op experience in the public service to work for Deloitte on change management consulting, working on government projects in Ottawa.
Monday, June 20, 2022 in Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs, FPA Voices, Public Affairs and Policy Management, Students
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