GRADUATE SPOTLIGHT: When an aggressive bull rhinoceros started threatening younger animals in a South African game preserve, Suffolk graduate student Cody Black stepped in to help. Shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow veterans, the former Marine took his orders from one of the preserve’s veterinarians. He’d spent the summer working with an anti-poaching organization. It was an atypical internship for a student on a nontraditional path to the master of applied politics/master of public administration dual-degree program. In 2016 he joined the marines. His first deployment, to the Black Sea, was eye-opening. Witnessing global tensions at close range taught Black the importance of international relations, he says. He entered the service as a 19-year-old who “got most of [his] news from Facebook” and didn’t bother to vote in the presidential election—but he left in his mid-20s with a keen interest in foreign and domestic policy. He took classes at a community college, then transferred to...