Australia Awards Alumni South Asia

Al Mamoon, a laconic, urbane civil servant from Bangladesh, recently graduated with a Master of Science degree in Public Policy and Management (MSPPM) from Carnegie Mellon University, Adelaide, South Australia.

Currently serving as the Bangladesh Deputy Commissioner of Taxes, Al Mamoon applied to Carnegie Mellon and was accepted as a successful AusAID candidate.

“My time in Adelaide and Australia was fantastic,” says Mamoon. The amount of work I produced in terms of assignments, projects and exams was astounding. It was the most prolific year of my life. It was not as much by choice as it was by necessity.”

Being a civil servant, the Public Polic y and Management course really suited Mamoon’s career requirements. Being more of an executive and less of a planner, he regularly applies the lessons of the MSPPM classroom in a myriad of ways to manage the many complex crises that he encounters every day at his workplace: Empirical Methods, Financial Analysis, Organisational Management, to name just a few. These courses greatly improved his critical abilities, as he himself proudly declares.

Among his teachers, Mamoon held Professor Terry Buss and Professor T. K. Lim in particularly high regard. The former taught him to follow directions and to produce small, well-researched and accurate documents, imbued with clarity and brevity, while the latter used empathy and real-world examples to drive points across infallibly, teaching students the art of calculation, presenting own numbers and the science of analyzing other people’s numbers.

He remembers Adelaide as a multicultural and harmonious city that also places much importance on arts and culture. The hospitability of the people of Adelaide is something he fondly remembers to this day.

Before he returned to Dhaka, he saw a number of plays and musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera. “They were incredible experiences,” Mamoon recounts. “You get to know a culture better by observing their art.”

Mamoon believes his experiences at Carnegie Mellon have shaped what he is now and what he is going to be, and that they have changed his life for the better. He recommends the program to anyone who values education.