Could you quickly summarise what you do for work?

I am currently a second-year master’s student in Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.  In addition to my studies, I work as a student at the Bernstein Group, a public policy consulting firm based in Berlin.  Before returning to school, I worked in Kazakhstan and Tanzania for a few years.

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Do you think being able to communicate in writing matters in your field? Why or why not?

Massively.  Obviously, being a student of international affairs meant that I had to write a lot of essays and reports.  That’s a lot of writing for sure, haha.  However, leaving the student perspective aside, my current student job requires me to write a lot as well.  I have to conduct research on public policies in Asian markets, and writing is the essential format of delivering the findings and results.  Clear communication in writing helps the client to make better decisions, as the final results are delivered in writing and the jargon of official texts and language requires clear analysis and writing to deliver.

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What, if any, parts of your work require you to write?

Almost all parts of it require writing.  From academic writing to drafting emails, everything is required for writing.

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How is writing as part of your job changing with time, especially regarding recent technology?

From two ways.  First of all, as a non-native speaker of English, I will make many mistakes.  Therefore, tools like Grammarly help me a lot in identifying basic mistakes, such as missing “a” or “the” or adding an extra comma.  However, that also requires me to have my own judgment, as I started to realize that Grammarly is not always correct.  

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Meanwhile, with the rise of AI, I believe AIs can also become a good writing assistant.  AI can do two things, with my experience.  AI can offer a general structure, a road map that you can take your essay to.  Meanwhile, AI can be a reference for how you can edit the essay, in the sense that should you add extra emphasis on a certain topic or offering more detailed explanation.  Yet I still believe that one should write the work oneself and not rely on AI to write the entire essay.    

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Does writing help you to think?

Of course, writing for me is a process that helps me start thinking in a structured, organized way.   I personally see writing as something like a debate, that we start with a theme, and then signposting, like first point, second notion, etc., as a way to organize my argument and to establish my point.  Occasionally I would also add elements that define the topic and restrict the scope of the discussion that we are having.  By that I can have a clear structure and how I am approaching the issues also becomes easier.  I think writing helps me to develop this way of thinking, as a clear structure would help others to quickly and effectively absorb your point and perspective.  

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Lastly, I want to say that in Chinese, writing is defined as “my hand writes my heart.” (我手写我心).  I believe that is the true essence of writing: that a genuine emotion or thought is the most powerful weapon for engaging readers.  Writing, in a large sense, is a reflection of who we are and how we talk to the rest of the world.  Therefore, to me, the ultimate writing technique is having no technique but being who we are.  

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Thank you!

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