Dr. Seth Colby, PhD in International Relations | Tax Research & Planning Officer at State of Hawaii, Department of Taxation

In this episode, we discuss the role of mentorship in Seth’s decision to pursue a PhD in International Relations, the various personal and professional factors that led him to take a role as a Tax Research & Planning Officer for the State of Hawaii after having worked in Washing DC at the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, and his advice for looking out for unexpected opportunities and carving your own unique career path.

Hosted by Lois Dankwa

To connect with Seth and to learn more about his story, visit his page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Lois Dankwa

Hi. I'm co-host Lois Dankwa and this is the 100 Alumni Voices Podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Seth Colby, PhD in international relations and current tax research and planning officer at State of Hawaii Department of Taxation. Hi, Seth.

Seth Colby

Hi, how are you doing?

Lois Dankwa

I'm good. How are you today?

Seth Colby

Doing great.

Lois Dankwa

Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm excited to dive in and learn a little about you, and I want to first start by hearing about what made you want to pursue a PhD in international relations and just learn more about your graduate work at Hopkins in general.

Seth Colby

Sure. I had the opportunity to, I got my masters at from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and I went to go work in finance and then the financial crisis happened and I got laid off and I went back to work at actually, back at Johns Hopkins with a really famous Professor, which is his name was Francis Fukuyama. And when I was working with him, he really he suggested that I get a PhD and he said that not everybody has the not everybody's made to get a PhD, but he thought I did. So, I took that with a lot of encouragement and I decided to get applied and I got into the program. And that's how I started.

Lois Dankwa

I love how you started by kind of sharing that that definitely an unplanned circumstance, but then also some wise words are what got you to that moment. And I think that's certainly something a lot of people can relate to. I I think about for myself a specific person kind of did the same thing like, oh, you should totally get a PhD, and I'd love to hear kind of. I guess honing in on the unplanned part, how did that kind of then change how you or how did you notice it influenced how you kind of existed in the PhD program and how you saw yourself using the degree afterwards?

Seth Colby

Yeah, the whole experience of getting a PhD was a little unexpected. Like I said, cause I got my masters and I just didn't expect to have any more kid a terminal degree like a PhD. But, going to work and working in finance was a huge asset when it came to being getting my PhD just because I had real world experience, and I think there's a lot of important professional skills that you can you gain a lot just working and you do not get so much when you're getting your PhD. So, and then afterwards, those skills really helped me. And just especially when you work in finance and things like that, it makes you you have to be react very quickly and you have to be pretty sharp and you have to be good on your feet and you have to be good at making presentations and communicating ideas succinctly and clearly, which were all really important from the professional work but not as important if you're getting your PhD.

Lois Dankwa

How interesting. So, right. So, there were certain things that after your, like your PhD, you kind of had to hone in and practice more. But can you talk more about the stuff that I guess from being in your program, you were able to like you're using now, but applying in a different context?

Seth Colby

I got it. Yeah. So, the. What I learned in the program was it my program had a very big emphasis on economics. And so, I took a lot of advanced level economics courses. A lot of statistics courses, a lot of quantitative courses, and those actually have been incredibly useful throughout my career, because even though I've I've changed jobs and changed careers really several times, the the underlying the fundamental the quantitative underpinnings have served me immensely, and it has allowed me to learn new essentially, new careers relatively quickly because I had a good base. And I would say that the quantitative study or the quantitative analysis really serves me because it sets you apart from everybody else because you're not afraid of numbers or learning how to code or doing things like that. And you can interpret data and we're only getting more and more data. The other thing that getting a PhD teaches you is it really teaches you how to think, right? I mean, what the PhD really it pounds into your head methodology and that just kind of like systemic approach to rigorous analysis and being able to subject your own ideas to some yeah something rigorous has really served me as well.

Lois Dankwa

No, I certainly understand that the kind of the way that you're forced to, yeah, the way your brain is forced to stretch in a doctorate program it, it's something that once, once it's stretched, it doesn't go back and snap back, which is it's valuable because it means that it is a skill you can carry throughout. And I'm I'm curious then, while you were. So, I'm thinking about how you were drawn to pursuing a PhD after kind of this professor told you that this was something that would make sense for you. But I'm curious then what what types of things did you see yourself doing professionally while you were in the Program? Like you mentioned kind of changing careers a couple times, but what did your thoughts about your first role or how you wanted to impact the space look like and how have they changed?

Seth Colby

Yeah, most people for my program go to work either in government or the World Bank, international financial institution, things like that. And so that's what I was planning to do and it worked out. I did get a job. I worked for the World Bank for a little while as a consultant. Then I moved to the Inter American Development Bank and that was my goal all along, and that's how it worked out. When you when I graduated, I think and this is pretty common for a lot of people with PhD or in their PhD program like there is this inertia to like look at academia or stay in academia just because all the prestige is there. However, the way I had done my my PhD program I had I didn't have like a lot of publications and things already set out and I I was older so I didn't really wanna do a postdoc and I wanted to get get paid. So going straight on to the professional level and working at the World Bank and the Inter American Development just fit that bill and that's exactly what I wanted to do.

Lois Dankwa

I understand that. That makes sense, so I'd love to hear more then about kind of the the different ways that you've like based off of the different roles that you've taken on like, how have you, yeah, just hearing more about that. And then also just a little more about what you do now.

Seth Colby

Sure. So, when you have a PhD, it definitely sets you apart. And people and it sets you the further you get, I think the further you get from Washington, DC, the more it sets you apart. So, I worked in Washington DC where there's tons of PhDs. Those were very helpful in terms of getting my job and doing certain things and I did really notice myself I just act differently and approach problems differently as a PhD than people who don't have PhD's, and that's just something I noticed. And you get pulled in a lot more to research and doing asking hard problems. But you know I worked in that field for about 5 to 6 years and then what became pretty obvious to me is I didn't want to spend the rest of my life living in and around Washington, DC or on the East Coast, and I was looking back for a change. And I'm originally from California, so I was looking for something in California and then this opportunity to be run this research office in Hawaii came up and so I applied for it. I because it's a state job, it takes forever and you know, I even forgot about applying or applying for it. They called me back six months later and they said if I was still interested in the job and they had to remind me what job it was, and then I applied, we took the job and or I applied, they offered me the job and I've been here and it's been a really useful to have a PhD here in Hawaii just because there's not a lot of economists or economic PhDs out here, and you really feel that or I at least I really feel like I'm very useful here, right? Where in Washington, DC there's probably 25,000 people with my professional and educational background. In in Hawaii, it's like 7, right? So, you really do feel like a little bit more like you're useful.

Lois Dankwa

That's such a good point. I feel like so many people are drawn to whether it's a doctorate program or anything they're drawn to whatever their next step is because of, like the impact that they're hoping to make. But then also it's like well, what location do you want to be in? And yeah, it's it's a such a good point to mention how like feeling more valuable in a space when there's less, less versions of you, I guess.

Seth Colby

Absolutely. And you know, working in Washington, DC was an incredibly important for me, right, because I developed a lot of skills and and expertise during that time. And then once you get to if you can move away from these big metropolises and stuff, I I just think. And you can find your niche there, then, then things really get interesting. And yeah, I would never be able my opinion would never be as consulted as much in Washington DC as it is here, just because there's so many people, very senior people, very established people in Washington DC compared to here in Hawaii.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I definitely hear that. So, I'm curious then you mentioned once you find your niche, I'm curious if it like, how are things different when it sounds like you found your niche, so how are things different when you seem to kind of be in a flow where it's like, OK, you're in a setting or environment that's more similar to what you were looking for for home and stuff like that.

Seth Colby

Ohh, one it feels good. I've traveled and moved around for most of my life and this is the first time where I don't have any intention or any at least I'm not making inquiries into the other opportunities outside outside of Hawaii. So, I really like it here. I do find that, like particularly in a place like Hawaii, where relationships are really stressed, or I mean are important, I think spending a little bit more time here is I've developed a lot of professional credibility and that's serving me very well and I also get to surf every day and play in the ocean and go for great hikes and eat good ramen so life is good here.

Lois Dankwa

That sounds that sounds nice. Being able to I mean, not that I can surf, but being able to surf every day if you like, surfing and ramen, that sounds like a good a good way to live when you're not working.

Seth Colby

Yeah, and and you know, like the, especially when you're in these places, like New York or Washington, DC, the Bay Area, like, people are so defined by their careers that they work all the time. Right. And so, I do find, like, there's a really nice work life balance here in Hawaii.

Lois Dankwa

That’s nice to hear, right? Just being reminded that it's OK to take breaks and just the people around you are embracing that so you feel more able to. I'm curious. So, you mentioned kind of the really appreciating the ability you have to build relationships in Hawaii and I think about how you mentioned earlier like a professor or mentor highlighted how a PhD would really serve you, and I'm interested to hear more about how kind of friends and professors and just different people in your life have been a part of your story.

Seth Colby

I mean in one way, my, my friends and relationships and mentors are my entire story. And if you think about it in one way. I I've always had a couple, you know, I think a lot of people find them. They don't come all the time. But you have a couple bosses or mentors or people that really give you advice along the way that have been incredibly impactful. I think that I've learned to work appreciate them when they come and I've also appreciated that, you know, sometimes you just have a boss that’s a boss. And that's it. And all you're doing is working for them and that you should I I honor that as well. Just because I think the expectation that you're going to have like a a great boss, every single job is just not likely. So having a couple key ones that you can keep for over the entirety of your career that can provide some good counsel when you're making tough decisions is really helpful and you can always just go back to them and say, hey, it's really fun. Once you become established to go back to these mentors and just kind of talk about what you're doing instead of always kind of being on the receiving end of asking questions and asking for favors. Being able to offer something in return and say, oh, you know, now I can do this for you or I can help you this way. So, it does come fall back full circle in that respect as well.

Lois Dankwa

Right. And it's it's nice to be a part of kind of a relationship growing. I you brought up a really good point about how sometimes you might have a boss or supervisor that really just exists in that role and it's less of a you're less able to form a personal relationship. And I I mean this not specific to you, but just that happens to a lot of us and it makes me think about how it's important to remember that like everyone can't be everything. So, like they can't be your boss and your best friend and like your XYZ, all of the things in one and that's such a good point. I'm curious then, if there's any kind of standout advice that sticks out to you from any any of your mentorship relationships.

Seth Colby

Uh, let me just give. You know, one of the funny, like the most frustrating thing I did when I was kind of like establishing my career and figuring out what I wanted to do is you, you know, you would go and talk to all these prestigious people and some of them turned into my mentors. An you’re like how how would I get to in a similar position like you do? And they would always like ohh, don't follow what I did. Mine was just this total like random path. What you really need to do is you need to work for this company and you need to do this and you need to do this. And that was always really frustrating, right? Because you're like, well, I don't want to do like work for this company and get this degree and do things. I wanna do it my way. And you know, like as I've grown and become more established one of my recommendations, I think to everybody is keep an eye out for weird opportunities that you can just take and go. And you'll never know. As long as you find them kind of interesting. I think that's a more interesting career path than doing exactly what everybody tells you to do and like break out on your own and decide how you want to do it.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah.

Seth Colby

And always keep an eye open for like, a lot of times, we're like, so narrowly focused on like what we want that we ignore, like, really great opportunities that are kind of foggy or a little not exactly what we we're thinking. Like, for example, you know I'm in Hawaii now. If you would have told me that somebody who's getting their PhD in international relations is gonna end up working for the state of Hawaii, I would have told you you're crazy, right? But somehow, here I am, right. And I think a lot of that has to do with like just keeping an eye out for things and willing to be open to changing my career a couple of times and doing things that I wasn't, you know, necessarily trained to do and it's been really interesting. It's been really fun.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, it's. It's funny because it can be so easy to be risk averse. And I think that and maybe certain industries or certain like academic paths might draw people to be more or less risk averse, but it's often in kind of diving into the uncertain moment that really ends up making things exciting in a way where people are like, wow, how did you do it? And it's like, I literally don't know.

Seth Colby

Yeah, like I’m just happy to be here. I don't know how I got here to be honest with you.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, it it's ironic because then when people are trying to tell your story, it's the thing is, it's one of those hindsight is 20-20 things where you can see the connection after the fact, but you really didn't write that version of the story for yourself.

Seth Colby

No, and at least in my case, and I'm super grateful for this, the real story was better than the story I ever envisioned for myself, even though, you know, when I was living through the story, I definitely had, like the highs and a lot of lows and a lot of self frustration and and a lot of disappointment, but somehow life is really interesting.

Lois Dankwa

Now I can certainly identify with that. So, I just have a couple more questions for you and you talked about kind of enjoying surfing and ramen and stuff like that. Yeah, I'd love to hear are there other ways that you enjoy kind of balancing life like work life and personal life?

Seth Colby

Ohh yeah. I mean, I love hanging out with my, you know, my family and my friends. And you know, when you live in a place like Hawaii, you need to be out outdoors and and enjoy it as much as possible. And you know another thing that I've like really appreciated is like in certain points of my professional career like I just had to step up and work really hard and other times I didn't, right. Other times I could actually go to work for 40 hours a week and just like, that's enough. And I really value sometimes when I was especially earlier on in my career, I got really frustrated when I didn't feel like I had tons of stuff to do or I wasn't growing professionally, but one of the things I've learned was OK, so right now, you don't have a lot to do professionally. What else are you going to do with your life? And I've learned to develop other interests like, you know, surfing or, you know, I do another weird thing I do now is like kendo, which is a Japanese sword fighting right and I go hiking and I have like just developed all these kind of outside interests which you know if when you're in Washington, DC, or Johns Hopkins, which is a super prestigious school, right, that where people are really wound up in the identities that we make for ourselves professionally, because we spent so much time doing it. But like just taking time and developing other aspects of yourself that aren't related to your professional life has been really good for me, particularly because sometimes your professional life can't be everything right.

Lois Dankwa

Right, it's such a I mean, in one sense, it's beneficial to enhance your nonprofessional aspects of your life because they're able to refresh and restore you in a way that then allows for you to show up well in those spaces, but then also, yeah, it means that you're less disappointed if there's a moment in work where you don't really have much to do because it's not your all of your eggs are not in that basket. 

Seth Colby

Exactly.

Lois Dankwa

So, I'm curious as my last question, what inspires you right now?

Seth Colby

Because of my job, I work a lot with economic policy and for the state. And so, I I think a lot about like how we got here in terms of like like these massive how like basically public policy is a function of everybody's individual decisions that they make in life through their voting and how that works. And not every not everything, not everything is a one-to-one relationship, but there is connection, right and one of the things I'm like really inspired by is like, you know, even though we always tend to think that we have no control over politics or our state, or like what's happening is like. One of the things that's become clear to me, and it is really inspiring, is we all have we all have influence. It might be small, right? But we're all making some kind of decision that's creating this, like larger whole. And so, the thing that's been inspiring me lately is to think about like how am I best fitting into that system? And how and how can I empower other people to think of themselves in that way versus just like them versus the world? Or they're, you know, there's the world out there that's, like, so depressing. And with all these problems and stuff. And rather than think about that, think about like, OK, how are we how are we all contributing to everything? I don't know. It's kind of like philosophical and weird, but I think because of my situation where I'm constantly trying to explain the trade-offs, the economic trade-offs involved in everything, sometimes like what we find is we're like no, you're not unhappy. You're just getting exactly what you wanted. But like, it's not like you're powerless. You're getting exactly what you wanted by the preferences you're you've been arguing for, right? And so. But by learning to come to terms with, like, the fact that, OK, so this is a super long-winded thing that you probably should edit out. 

Lois Dankwa

No, I love it.

Seth Colby

But it's like think about like in Hawaii, like housing is a huge issue, right? It's super expensive, super expensive to live here and the and everybody wants lower housing prices, right? But at the same time, nobody wants like everybody wants to keep Hawaii exactly like it was the day that they moved here, which is like they don't want more people moving to Hawaii. Which is OK; that's fine. But one of the ways that you keep people from moving to Hawaii and keeping, like, keeping the crowds down is having everything expensive, right? So, the housing policy is actually somewhat by design by all of us, right, because we are all saying no, we don't want more housing or we don't want like more congestion. We don't want, like wealthy people, to move in. We only want to provide housing for the local people, right? But like by having such a narrow vision of what can do everything, it's like, they're also creating a situation where they have high housing, which is they're always complain about. But so sometimes what I'm trying to I get inspired about and and I also get things it's like now don't get upset about the high housing prices because you're getting the thing that you want, which is not a lot of people moving to Hawaii, right. And like or or if you want lower housing prices, then you have to accept more people moving to Hawaii. But it just clarifies the thought and everything and it it it really I guess it the reason I find this all inspirational is like we're all playing a role in this and like the the more we understand our role in the the bigger society, I think the more empowered we should feel, because we're all playing a pretty big role in things.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I absolutely loved everything you said. I I was inspired by what inspires you. So, I think that was a a success on your end. But yeah, it made me think about how we're all part of. We're all part of the puzzle and you can't get rid of a puzzle piece because then the picture is missing a piece of the puzzle and it's it can, regardless of how big or small our impact is. Like, I love that you continue to hone in on the fact that we do have impact. And continuing, continuing to think about ways that we can remind people that we individually have impact. That was amazing. So that Seth, I want to thank you so much for just taking time to chat today. I loved learning a little about you, about your career arc, like your personal interests and all, all kinds of things. So, thanks so much for taking time to chat today.

Seth Colby

It was my pleasure. And thank you very much, Lois.