Dec. 01, 2023
Community in Grad School and Beyond: An Interview with Annie Fortnow, Hornstein MA/MBA ’23
Brandeis UniversityThis article first appeared on the Brandeis University website December 1, 2023.
After graduating from Brandeis with her BA in 2017, Annie Fortnow, Hornstein MA/MBA ‘23, spent four years working for Jewish organizations. Wanting to continue making change within the Jewish community, she thought getting a graduate degree would help her make a bigger impact. Because she wanted to get an MBA with a Jewish lens, she looked into the Hornstein Program, which she knew about from her days as an undergraduate.
A few months after graduating, Annie described her time in the program as a “really positive learning experience.” She took classes focused in accounting, financial management, operations strategy, and nonprofit management, skills she didn’t have much previous exposure to and now uses regularly in her job with Yad Chessed, a Jewish social service agency in Waltham. She also gained a very solid understanding of the Jewish communal organization landscape and now feels very comfortable talking about its different sectors, its major players, and what they’re doing. She especially appreciated the chance to do fieldwork with Repair the World, an opportunity she got connected to through a Hornstein alum.