“It's very easy to lose track of how to form arguments in a way that can really change minds. At Notre Dame, this ability is really drilled into you from day one,” said Katie Beirne Fallon ’98, senior vice president and global head of corporate affairs at Hilton Worldwide.
Fallon majored in government and international studies in Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters. She was awarded a Marshall Scholarship and went on to earn a master’s degree in comparative ethnic conflict from Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics.
Prior to her present position at Hilton Worldwide, Fallon was the director of legislative affairs at the White House for President Barack Obama, working to improve the relationship between Congress and the Office of the President.
“Working in the White House was the most amazing professional and personal experience I've ever had and may ever have," she said.
Throughout her career, Fallon has relied on the skills she developed in the College of Arts and Letters.
“The value of a liberal arts education, to me, is the ability to critically judge my own opinions and my own determination of the world around me,” she said. “It's a skill set that you can only develop in classes that really press you to check your own boundaries and look outside your own viewpoints for answers, and that skill set is increasingly valuable across many, many parts of our professional and political universe today.”
