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For Marcus Morrow MPP’14, after finishing his undergraduate studies, Sanford seemed like the best choice for a jumping-off point for his career. He explained that meeting with Sanford professors before applying made a big impact on his decision to come to Duke.
“We talked a long time about what my career goals were and what I wanted to do and I felt that Duke would be a place where I would have a network for the rest of my career.”
For both Marcus and his wife Ciara, their time at Sanford gave them just that.
“There’s been so many opportunities to stay connected with the Sanford community and I still benefit from that, and benefit from the ‘Duke Mafia’,” Ciara said. “I expected needing to find other opportunities myself, but the connections that Duke was able to make and the continued network has been was more unexpected than anything else.”
One of the most important connections made through Duke was meeting each other. Their paths finally crossed when they both ended up in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2015. After graduation, Marcus taken a position with Deloitte, then moved to Booz Allen Hamilton as a federal government consultant just before Ciara came to D.C. for her internship.
“We had networks of people that we knew, and friends that crossed over… so we met through one of my classmates who was interning at the place where Marcus was working,” Ciara explained. The two hit it off immediately, bonding over their shared passions for policy and their experiences at Sanford.
“Over the pandemic, I think it was a big push to be happy in whatever job you’re in,” said Marcus. His new position as a senior strategic advisor at Blue Cross has turned out to be just what Marcus was looking for. It is his first job in healthcare instead of policy, he explained. “[There have] definitely been some changes, but I’m very happy with where I am now, and I definitely have a good balance.”