PUCDC Career Talk Series: An alumni journey into a career in research

A few months ago, Naing Min Khant was completing his undergraduate studies at Parami University. In September, he returned to meet current students with a different perspective to share: what happens when the theories, questions, and research skills developed at university become part of your everyday work?

Naing Min Khant, a graduate of Parami University’s Class of 2026, studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). His interest in political research, however, did not wait until graduation. He began working in the field during his undergraduate years, including as a Program Associate at the Institute for Strategy and Policy - Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar).

That experience placed him on both sides of research. He knew the academic side, the reading, writing, discussions, and arguments that fill a university semester,  but he was also learning what research demands outside the classroom.

During “From Classroom to Career in Research: An Alumni Journey,” Naing Min Khant spoke about those two worlds and how they began to connect.

Finding a place for what he learned

For a PPE student, politics can occupy many spaces at once. It can be a theory discussed in class, an event unfolding in the news, a question for a research paper, or a reality affecting people's lives.

Naing Min Khant's work reflects that range.

Alongside his professional research, he has continued to write independently about contemporary political issues in Myanmar. On his Substack, his Opinions, which he shared with students during the session, his articles examine political dialogue, military leadership, institutional power, and the country's changing political landscape.

The subjects are complex, but they also reveal something about the way he approaches research. He does not simply recount what happened. His writing asks why it happened, what might explain it, and what existing political ideas can tell us about what may happen next.

In one piece, for example, he examines the feasibility of political negotiation in Myanmar by considering the interests and positions of different actors. Other pieces look closely at military leadership and succession. His analysis has also reached audiences beyond his own platform, including work published by East Asia Forum.

For students considering research as a career, this is an important distinction. Research is not simply about collecting more information. The harder work comes afterward: deciding what matters, testing an argument against evidence, recognizing what the evidence cannot tell you, and communicating the result clearly enough for someone else to follow.

Research beyond an assignment

University research usually comes with a syllabus, an assignment question, a deadline, and a professor waiting to read the final paper. Professional research is not always that neatly defined.

Questions may change as new information emerges. Sources can be incomplete. An initial assumption may turn out to be wrong. A researcher may spend considerable time following one direction only to discover that the evidence points somewhere else.

For Naing Min Khant, studying PPE provided more than subject knowledge. Philosophy trained him to examine assumptions and arguments carefully. Politics brought questions of institutions, power, and competing interests. Economics offered another way of thinking about choices, incentives, and consequences. Each gave him a different lens through which to approach a research question.

But knowing a concept and knowing when to use it are different skills. So are writing an academic paper for a professor and producing analysis for readers outside the classroom. Those differences are learned by doing the work.

And on that point, Naing Min Khant was direct with students: “In the research career field, nobody is going to knock on your door and say, ‘Here is one research opportunity.’ There is no such thing. If you see a gap, don’t wait for anyone to ask you to write about it.”

His advice reflects something already visible in his own work. He did not wait until graduation to begin writing about the issues that interested him. Through his opinions, he created his own space to follow questions, develop arguments, and put his analysis in front of readers.

For students who are interested in research but have not yet held a research position, that is an accessible place to start. A question that keeps returning in class, an issue missing from a wider discussion, or a subject that deserves closer attention can become the beginning of a piece of research. Reading beyond assigned materials, following the evidence, writing, and revising an argument are all ways of beginning the work before “researcher” appears in a job title.

Returning to Parami from the other side of the classroom

There was little distance between Naing Min Khant and the students listening to him.

He is not an alumnus looking back at Parami after twenty years in his profession. He graduated with the Class of 2026. The deadlines, class discussions, papers, and uncertainty about what comes after university are recent memories.

That closeness made the conversation particularly relevant for students beginning to think about their own careers. Naing Min Khant was speaking about a transition he had only recently made himself.

A first job does not settle every question about where a career will lead, just as graduation does not suddenly turn a student into a finished professional. Learning continues; the setting and expectations simply change.

Naing Min Khant's experience offers one example of what that can look like. His PPE education gave him questions and frameworks to work with. Professional experience gave those skills a different setting. Independent writing gave him room to test and develop his own thinking.

Now, as a member of Parami's Class of 2026, he is taking on another role as part of an alumni community that current students can learn from.

For students considering research, his message was not to wait until every condition is in place. A research career may eventually come with a position, an organization, or a title, but the work itself can begin much earlier.

Sometimes, it begins by noticing a gap and deciding not to wait for someone else to ask you to explore it.