# @princetonspia on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CXCmA2AroHz
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/20742235-princetonspia-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/93f3090094.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-12-04T00:18:11.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Princeton SPIA (@princetonspia) — https://gondola.cc/princetonspia

## Caption

#PolicyProfile: “My grandfather has had a huge influence on my personal and professional life in terms of the impact I want to have on the world. He was a Holocaust survivor. He was only 12 or 13 when he was sent to the concentration camps. When he was at his absolute worst, he’d remind himself that the one thing the Nazis couldn’t take from him was what he already knew. He also had an incredibly strong will to survive. That’s what inspired me to pursue a graduate degree at Princeton—my grandfather’s will and the way he cherished knowledge and education. Over the years, I’ve come to realize the horrible atrocities he faced gave me more thought into the ethics of foreign policy, like civilian protection, which looks vastly different today than it did during World War II. I did my undergraduate studies at GWUniversity where I studied international affairs and security policy. When I was applying to graduate school, I thought a lot about what I wanted to take away from the experience. I did a some reflecting on what I felt like I was missing from my undergraduate experience, and that was the ethical conversations around foreign policy objectives. Now that I’m at SPIA, I can’t stop reading about ethics in policymaking. I'm focusing more on how civilians are engaged in, and impacted, often unfairly, by conflict. Today, more and more conflicts are happening in urban spaces, where untrained, unarmed civilians, find themselves in the dead center of hostilities. I am relieved to go to a school where we can have these hard conversations in the classroom.” — Alisa Laufer (alisalalala) MPA ‘23. #PolicyProfile is an Instagram series that features members of our community. Want to be featured? Comment/DM us. #AtSPIAWeLearn #AtSPIAWeRise #Ethics #ForeignPolicy #CivilianProtection #Holocaust #InternationalAffairs #SecurityPolicy #WorldWarII

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- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 224
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## Tags

atspiawelearn, worldwarii, securitypolicy, ethics, atspiawerise, holocaust, internationalaffairs, policyprofile, civilianprotection, foreignpolicy

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