For alumnus Mark Fahmy, Towson was the first step in his pursuit of higher education. After graduating from Towson in the spring of 2019, Fahmy pursued the next step, his master’s from Georgetown University. However, Mark Fahmy did not stop there, currently he is a Ph.D. candidate for law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston.
Q: Tell us about your time at TU.
A: I really have a lot of appreciation and gratitude toward Towson University for pushing me to challenge myself to graduate in three years. I have no idea what I’d be doing right now if I had graduated in spring of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began to emerge and disrupt the course of everyone’s lives.
Q: What impacted you the most during your time at Towson University?
A: During my time at Towson, I started off in the business administration program and was looking to specifically concentrate in either finance or economics. It was my freshman year when I was taking a microeconomics class that I was able to get connected with one of my professors who was a technical advisor at a company that at the time was called the Regional Economic Studies Institute (RESI), under Towson University. She was working there and jointly teaching at Towson. I decided to ask her if she could put me in touch with any of the internship or recruitment specialists at RESI, and I was fortunate enough to interview with them and work with them in the spring of 2017, just after my first semester at TU. That experience was really one of the biggest hallmark moments for me, something very memorable. I had an opportunity to contribute to the regional economic research that TU was supporting and providing more broadly throughout the greater Baltimore area. That experience actually helped to jumpstart a lot of my career choices and professional trajectory. After I interned at RESI, I worked at Morgan Stanley. I also had another internship with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which was my overture into the federal service. I was really fortunate to get all of those opportunities from the TU network at a pretty young age. Towson did a very good job of encouraging students, challenging them and providing them with good resources and opportunities to build a solid network.
Q: Which class in CBE most influenced your academic and career trajectory?
A:Environment of Business (LEGL 225)
I took Dr. Iotina’s class my freshman year. It was just before I started my first internship, and it really gave a very informative scope into the legal environment in the business world. We had opportunities to go to circuit courts, monitor cases and do very engaging and experiential work outside of the classroom, but we also got to learn a lot more about the legal frameworks that are used and applied in the business world. That was something that was really enticing to me, mainly because it’s a very critical component when you do work at an institution. [It’s important] to be cognizant of what you are legally bound to, and I’ve always kind of aspired to go into legal reform. Iontina’s class, specifically, was one of the benchmarks in my undergraduate studies that gave me that impetus to pursue it further.
Q: What pros and cons have you seen going straight through your degrees?
A: Personally, I received a lot of guidance that if you intend to go into graduate school, you ought to do it while you can. I definitely do like to plan ahead and as I started working in the federal service, I saw my career accelerating very quickly. I realized that the higher up I move within the company, the more challenging it will be for me to create an opportunity to go back to school. Also, I noticed in the Agency [Department of Homeland Security] that they put in a lot of effort and investment into young and entry level personnel, so it was a good opportunity to commingle my academic pursuits with my professional pursuits. I know that the two do supplement each other because when I’m in class, I’m able to speak on the institutional experience, and when I’m at work, I’m able to apply a lot of theoretical and applicable concepts from the coursework in my day to day job. I think it was better for me to go straight through my education and matriculate right out of undergrad and masters.
Q: What are your future goals?
A: I definitely want to stick around in the federal service. I do really like working for the government. It’s definitely one of the institutions where you can have a very meaningful and visible impact in the area of responsibility in which you’re working. I definitely intend on staying for maybe 10, 15, 20 years. We’ll see how that career progression and trajectory goes, but beyond that, I would really like to go into teaching. Specifically, some policy courses, or even some legal courses at the undergraduate or graduate level, but I have plans for that much later down the road once I have some experience.
Q: What advice would you give current students?
A: The advice I would provide future students with is to be intentional about fostering a rapport with your professors, particularly those that are teaching in disciplines you are either interested in exploring further, conducting research in, and/or eventually working in. That was certainly the most formatively enriching aspect of my college experience, and was able to seamlessly balance it with active social & academic dynamics.
In closing, Mark had this to say, “I really just want to thank you for the opportunity. I have so much gratitude for CBE and Towson, and I love having the opportunity to come back and speak. This alumni spotlight means a lot to me.”
Mark Fahmy is currently the Portfolio & Public Engagement Manager for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a great example of the trajectory of excellence on which CBE has sent countless alumni. We look forward to watching Mr. Fahmy’s career and know there are many outstanding accomplishments to come.
Written by: Millie Klefsaas