German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)/ Foreign Office prize supports international students in Germany.
For the fourth year, the Hertie School presented the DAAD Prize on behalf of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to one of its international students. The 2018 DAAD Prize was awarded to Victor Ortiz Rivera, who joined the MPP programme in 2017, in recognition of his academic record and commitment to the Hertie School community.
The DAAD Prize is awarded by universities in Germany to honour an international degree-seeking student who has excelled academically and shown remarkable social or intercultural engagement. The prize money of 1000 euros is financed by the German Foreign Office.
Victor is originally from Mexico and holds a Bachelor in Political Science from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Since the beginning of his studies Victor has not only achieved excellent grades, he has also been very involved in the Hertie School community. He was elected student representative and articulated the interests and needs of his cohort vis-à-vis school management, faculty, and administration. While many student reps decide not to run for office again in their second year, Victor decided to make an even bigger impact and agreed to become the chairperson of the new Hertie Student Representation. In this new role he has worked extremely hard to reform student government at the Hertie School.
At the presentation of the award on 14 November, Christine Reh, Dean of Graduate Programmes, emphasised that the Hertie School is very grateful for the big impact that Victor and his fellow student representatives are making in our community. Since being elected, Victor has shown a remarkable sense of leadership and has always been extremely open, calm and considerate while listening to the concerns of individual students and involving different stakeholders to find solutions. His peers and members of the school’s administration are impressed with his sense of empathy. He is relentless in his desire to serve the student body and to make the school a better place for everyone. Despite the incredible workload that he has handled over the last year at Hertie, he continues to approach every day with a positive attitude and a big heart.
Find out more about the Master of Public Policy (MPP).