Noah Drezner, GED'04, GR'08

Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education

Like many students, Noah Drezner, a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Education (GSE), was drawn to Penn for its dual strengths in producing groundbreaking knowledge and applying it practically.

“When I was applying to come here as a master’s student,” says Noah, “I was thinking about the best place to do both theory and practice, because I thought that I wanted to go right back into higher education administration, but I wasn’t entirely sure.” As it turned out, Noah found at Penn GSE a group of faculty and fellow students who sparked his interest in research, and when the time came to decide whether to return to work after completing his master’s, he found he didn’t want to leave.

“It was a major decision to stay here,” Noah explains. “I only applied to Penn’s Ph.D. program, and I put all my eggs in one basket because of the faculty and the opportunity to do research in a small department with people that really cared about their students and were going to shepherd and mentor me.” In addition to the valuable mentorship and research opportunities Noah has enjoyed as a Ph.D. student, he has had the chance to study educational practices and approaches first-hand in China, Spain, and South Africa.

And it’s all been directly relevant to his future plans. “All of my experiences – my travels, my education, my research – I could not imagine having when I was filling out my application,” Noah says. “I am so fortunate, and I know that these experiences are only going to add to my career and my research. My experience at Penn is truly the experience that I want to recreate for my future students, wherever I end up.

Of course, Noah’s journey would have been very different without the full funding and stipend he receives from Penn: “The reason that I can do my own research and contribute to faculty research, too, is because I don’t have to worry about means.

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