Master in Public Affairs

专业详情

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

The Master in Public Affairs (M.P.A.) offers rigorous preparation for international and domestic policy careers.

This two-year, full-time residential program cultivates among its students and graduates a lasting commitment to public service.

Through its core curriculum and a wide variety of elective courses, students learn analytical skills that address the political, economic, quantitative, behavioral and normative aspects of complex policy problems. 

Each M.P.A. candidate selects a policy field in which to specialize from the school’s four fields of concentration: international relations, international development, domestic policy, and economics and public policy. Students may also earn a joint degree in public affairs and law (M.P.A./J.D.), or in public affairs and business (M.P.A./M.B.A.). Certificate programs offer additional areas of specialization in fields such as health policy; science, technology, and environmental policy (STEP); and urban policy.

Significant financial aid resources are dedicated to permitting the majority of SPIA students the opportunity to receive graduate degrees without incurring loan indebtedness and to launch them into public service careers in the public and nonprofit sectors.

COURSES:

Students must complete 16 full-term courses in an approved plan of study, attaining an overall average in the 16 courses of 80 or better. The overall average includes actual grades in courses taken Pass/D/Fail. The curriculum of the M.P.A. program includes six required core courses that address skills and techniques needed for the systematic study of public policy problems, as well as a policy workshop. The courses cover political analysis, quantitative methods, and economic and behavioral analysis. 

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

Policy Workshops
Graduate policy workshops are a unique part of the SPIA graduate curriculum.

Policy workshops provide students with an opportunity to use the analytical skills they have acquired in the first year in the program to analyze complex and challenging policy issues, usually for real clients. Each workshop consists of 8 – 10 students who work in teams to evaluate a policy challenge.

The workshops emphasize policy implementation, and it is this emphasis that distinguishes them from regular courses. The goal of the workshops is to understand a policy issue in great depth and to make policy recommendations that are both creative and realistic, given the relevant institutional and political constraints.

DEI half-term course
Starting in the Fall 2020, all students must take at least one half-term course that focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion during the two-year course of study.  A list of pre-approved courses will be made available to students each academic year.

Required summer course in Race, Power and Inequality 
Starting in Summer 2021, all students must take a summer course in Race, Power and Inequality which will precede all other core courses and will be integrated into the four-week summer program.  This is a for-credit half-term course, with mandatory PDF grading.

Integrated Policy Exercise (IPE)
In late January, before spring semester courses begin, first-year M.P.A. students are required to take part in a policy project called the Integrated Policy Exercise, or IPE.

The IPE requires students to apply the skills they acquired in the fall term core courses. They are given briefing materials to review in advance and are then required to submit a comprehensive memo in response to a set of specific policy questions. The IPE is a trial run for the first-year qualifying examination (QE1).

Qualifying Examination 1 (QE1)
In late April/early May, at the end of the second semester, students are required to take the QE1, a graded exercise that closely parallels the IPE.

The QE1 requires an integrated use of all the analytical skills acquired in the first-year core curriculum.

Qualifying Examination 2 (QE2)
Second-year students are required to take and pass a second qualifying exam (QE2) in their chosen field of concentration at the end of the second year.

Internship
Students must successfully complete an internship approved by the Internship Committee.