StyLeD

FWIW I asked a good friend of mine who did USP for 2 semesters and switched to EPD, and he said that the USP program is primarily domestic due to the brand name professors that draw student interest. However, he also said it's really easy to pick USP-related classes with an int'l focus, so my impression is that there's enough classes within SIPA and outside of it - you can take any elective after all - where you won't feel as constrained as you would in a smaller school at, say, Tufts.

Sorry, I didn't participate in any of the tech/policy initiatives and none of my classes overlapped with that of the USP folks. Your best bet for student feedback would be to reach out to USP-SIPA students on LinkedIn and see what they have to say. All I know is that the USP concentration population is very small compared to the rest of SIPA. I did do a search in our internship database which turned up 31 results for USP (as opposed to 90 for EPD) - a good mix of domestic and international, but international students tended to pick up international internships. Everyone else seemed to pursue local opportunities. Seems like if you're international, you won't have trouble finding an internship at a NY office of an int'l development bank or something like that, but if you're domestic looking for int'l internship experience, you're out of luck.

Glad to help! I've got way too much time before I start work, so ask away. PA positions are pretty relaxing, you're pretty much a glorified federal work study student (at least I was). Although, I heard that they're redoing the PA programs so my info might be outdated. Most TA positions require a ton of work, as you're often grading midterm papers, holding recitations once a week (~2 hours), and holding office hours once a week (~2 hours). And that's only the front-end work that we students see. I'm sure TAs also work with the course announcement system, posting updates to syllabi, correcting assignment dates, answering pressing questions, etc. But it's a great resume-booster, as you can definitely say you were in the top 10% of the class (probably closer to top 5%) and that you both learned and taught the material. Also will secure you a solid recommendation, I'm sure. I entered through government sponsorship, and it was only until my 2nd year that I decided to forgo the job security in favor of private sector work. So, my first year was really relaxed. Most people try and get their core courses out of the way, which also gives you the best chance of getting a TA-ship. If that's you, then your first semester will be pretty tough - my recommendation is to not overwhelm yourself with more than two quantitative classes. My social circle at SIPA was tied to my culture and my profession. I met people from other schools through the professional student organization, which was very valuable - one thing I wish I did more was meet people from other schools (especially, for me, the business school). It was a good balance. I went to about one social event a week, and I studied with people from both groups. In my last semester, I met 3-4 times a week with people similarly interested in private sector work. I still stay in touch with those students. ______ As for the domestic focus of SIPA, all of the quantitative professors will approach the class from a US perspective. This is good. There's also enough professors to go around where you can graduate having taken courses from professors who only specialize in US policy. These professors will have local roots - so you can expect policy courses taught by former mayors, NY-based nonprofit executive directors, etc. Just keep in mind that the more important the professor, the less present they'll be in the classroom. Also, the professors are all quite stereotypical in their research focus. If a professor is teaching about political development and studied in and is from some part of Latin America, you can be sure that the class will be very Latin America-focused. You'll have two weeks to pick the classes that suit you best, although there's so many students the interesting functional courses are often filled by 2nd year students first. If you tailor your first semester to selecting core courses taught by professors who've worked where you want to work, then you'll be golden. tSIPA doesn't have a concentration or specialization specifically targeting nonprofits, but their functional specializations are cross-industry (gender, advanced statistics, management, etc.) They also have a core management course on non-profit organizations taught by a great professor, that may interest you. For details on courses in, say, nonprofit management, search using this http://www.columbia.edu/cu/bulletin/uwb/ (school-wide) and http://bulletin.columbia.edu/sipa/course-search/ (SIPA-specific). Just type in something like "spring 2018 nonprofit" and you'll get a better understanding of the classes you might expect. One of the big draws of Columbia is that you can take courses from other schools, either as an elective or as a core replacement. Gives you a bit a flexibility in your schedule. If you want to get a better understanding of SIPA from someone who shares your interests, your best bet would be to go on LinkedIn and do a search for SIPA alum at nonprofits you want to work at in 2 years. We're usually pretty good as responding. One more thing of note: SIPA's MPA program places regionally, so their municipal/state/federal career postings will be either international, NY-based, or East Coast-based. Their nonprofits will similarly either be international or local.

Good to know you have housing sorted out. That's one of the major costs of living in New York. As far as assistantships go, the $20k ones require a lot of preparation and planning - you need to take the courses you want to TA as early as possible to maximize your chances of getting interviews the first semester of your 2nd year. You also need to take courses that you absolutely know you will do well in, and they should be courses you would've already taken always regardless of your interest in TAing. If there is such a course, then by all means, take it. If not, then don't expect to receive a TAship your 2nd year. That being said, it's not hard to get a Program Assistantship with one of the offices/institutes your 2nd year. They provide around $6000-$10000 in funding and are much easier to get than TAships - there's no grade requirement, for instance. I conducted a SIPA student survey in New York a few months ago and one of the challenges of commuting was missing out on night life, since most of the big social events are held in the evening. Key word being social; if you're interested in academic events, they're held throughout the day and you should be able to have a healthy work-life balance. Career services are TERRIBLE. My god, I could go on for days about how useless the career services office is. I'm going to go on a rant. Let me distill my displeasure in a couple bullet points: They did not help at all in securing my current job. (disclaimer: SIPA is very reputable for int'l development, but my career goals were different) They hold information sessions, but the companies that come to SIPA fall into four categories: top-tier int'l development (World Bank, IMF, Dalberg, UNICEF, UN); state/federal jobs (New York Transit; DOE, DOS, military); int'l/regional private (Goldman Sacs, JP Morgan, BAH, MBB/Big 4 consulting-global (NOT domestic; SIPA is not a target or even semi-target school)); and various nonprofits, some big and some small. My industry was underrepresented and views SIPA with some disdain. SIPA is so international that the career options often exclude domestic students from applying, which is incredibly frustrating. Their career advisers are god-awful (disclaimer: they have 3 or 4 advisers. I've visited two of them and people have complained to me about the other two) I actually went to one of their advisers seeking advice (I have a federal background and was trying to transition to private with no hard skills) and they pretty much accused me of trying to secure a job guarantee out of them when I was merely looking for a rough roadmap to follow and some anecdotal evidence from past students. At my undergraduate institution, the alumni-career services network was strong, and the advisers would put me in touch with recent alumni who were always willing to help. At SIPA, the advisers are unwilling (unable?) to provide you with connections. They will tell you everyone is different and that there's no concrete path they can provide, which IMO is just their way of sidestepping their own incompetence. If they were to read this post, the first thing they would think of would be, "Why is STyLeD misguided and wrong?" not "How might we improve our services to address StyLeD's concerns?" You could probably replace the worst adviser with Google Home and expect the same level of empathy and advice. They limit you to three visits a semester. Thankfully, after the first visit you won't want to use the other two visits. They have a poor reputation in some career fields. Let's just say that alumni in certain industries have expressed frustration to me when trying to organize information sessions or recruiting events through the career center. For instance, if I were an alumna interesting in advertising a job requiring a federal security clearance, I would submit the necessary paperwork and check back a month later only to find that 80% of applications are from foreign students who have no shot at, and should have been precluded from, even applying. From a recruiting standpoint, this drives down the success rate of recruiting (instead of, say, successfully hiring 1 in 20, now you report hiring 1 in 100, 80 of whom should not have even applied). Then, in my (alumna's) company, my superiors would report that SIPA is not worth the effort of sifting through clearly unqualified candidates. SIPA then loses its "target" status and the company no longer recruits there. This is a hypothetical situation with some basis in reality. My advice would be to treat SIPA's career services as an automated job postings system with no human interaction. Perhaps the one good thing about career services is that 9/10 fellow students you meet will also have had a terrible experience with them as well, so it's a great way to bond (I guess that means you'll have to visit a career adviser at least once...). Speaking of, your colleagues at SIPA will be hundreds of times better than the career center at helping you obtain your career goals. If you're an intelligent, down-to-earth team player, you will make friends and they will want to help you. SIPA's various industry-specific student groups really help to bring together like-minded individuals. It's how I obtained both my summer internship and post-grad job. I want to reiterate that I am a domestic student with no interest in international development. If I were an international student interested in doing M&E work for the UN or World Bank, I would be much happier with the career options - particularly the quality of companies that recruit on campus - but equally unhappy with the quality of advice and bureaucratic limitations of career services. tl;dr I'm grateful to SIPA for giving me the alumni network and contacts I have today, but I did so without the help of the career center.

Just from speaking with people in my cohort, I do believe the MPA cohort is bigger than than the MIA. The MIA program may be older, but I think people find it more practical these days to have MPA on their resume over MIA. Personally, I'm an MIA graduate but, at least for the next 6 years or so, I wish I did an MPA. People have no idea what an MIA program is, and that can hurt you if you're trying to enter any sector other than int'l development/politics. OTOH, the MIA degree is quite unique and can give you a leg up if you're committed to an international career.

Sure thing - that's a great question! The program tuition page on SIPA's website is quite accurate. $160-$170k over two years sounds about right. I had a $15,000/year SIPA scholarship, a $20,000 external scholarship, and a $10,000 program assistantship to offset some of the costs. Still, I'm graduating with a low six-figures in debt, which is scary but manageable. The number that they like to throw out - something like most students get an assistantship in their 2nd year - is pretty disingenuous. They include people that get funding for only one semester (like me), as well as people that get only partial funding (something like $5,000 only). Then they exclude people who don't even apply, which is how they got to their very nice number. In my experience, the only way to get a TA position is to take the professor's course that first year and get an A. Core courses like Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Quantitative Analysis, Accounting will have the most TA positions available, but you'd have to get an A, and A's are only given out to the top 10%~ or so of the class. It's for the most part a meritocracy - the TAs clearly deserved the grade they got, and they're very good at the subject they got hired for. Though they do a little affirmative action when selecting TAs; every major course will always have at least 1 Chinese TA due to the huge number of Chinese students at SIPA. I would say the median amount you can "expect" to get (assuming you try really hard to get funding the second year) is $7,500-$10,000. Don't expect the $20,000 TA-ships unless you're a goddess/god at economics, accounting, statistical modeling, etc or unless you take a first-semester course offered yearly, do well in it, and the professor likes you.

Glad to give back! 1. Part-time jobs: Yes. I worked two part-time jobs, actually, as a graphic designer for a NYC-based nonprofit and a program assistant for one of SIPA's centers. I worked a total of ~20 hours and spent ~10 hours on student clubs and such. So it's definitely doable for the first three semesters - during your capstone semester, the capstone class will take up a huge chunk of time, so budget for that. BUT if you want to aim for a 3.8+ and you're not a naturally gifted student, it'll be a bit hard since, as I mentioned in my previous comment, SIPA grades on a curve and it's quite difficult to get an A half-assedly. 2. Vibe: There's a TON of student clubs at SIPA, some of them are functional (UN, M&E, etc.) and others are regional (Latin America, Southeast Asia, China, etc.). There's also a pretty active student government and concentration-specific events (for EPD, Human Rights, IFEP, etc.) However, it's a little intimidating to cross-mingle - Latin American students tend to revert to their native tongues during class breaks, and the Chinese/Japanese/Korean students do the same. You'll learn a lot about why and how other people are at/got into SIPA, though. Many students are government-sponsored and thus care less grades. Very diverse, so it depends. 3. Time out of class: Again, it depends - most people are not doing research (as in statistics-heavy research methodology). A lot of people are working to pay off school, lots of after-class parties and social gatherings, many people intern - especially at the UN, and lots of people join clubs as well. Most people do at least two of the four things I mentioned. Whatever you want/plan to do, you're guaranteed to find someone else doing something similar. In my second year, a lot of people were looking for jobs together as well. It was a great way to stay motivated and chat about exit opportunities. Let me know if you'd like further clarification.

Hope this helps: 1. As a general policy, SIPA grades on a curve. This means that it's incredibly difficult to get an A or a C. Most people fall in the B to B+ range. If you want an A, you'll have to try really, really hard. If you want to fail, you'll have to try really, really hard as well. Classes vary widely. The core classes are extremely useful. The professors who teach those courses have taught them for many, many years. The schedule is as hectic as you want it to be, depending on what grade you want. Courses are usually held M-Th, with most classes on Tuesday/Wednesday. Friday is sort of a "rest day", but that just means review sessions, group work, recitations, etc. are all held that day. 2. First-year students can opt-in on student housing, but student housing is year-round...so if you're planning on interning elsewhere, you'll likely have to forgo student housing or sublease it. Pricing options are between ~900 and ~2000, so lots of diversity. Check out the I-House if you want a really diverse living experience. Living in NYC is stupidly expensive, I paid $1100 to live in a room the size of a large walk-in closet (I could stretch my arms wide and almost touch both sides of the room) with 3 other people. This was on 116th. I moved to The Arbor afterwards - I lived in a luxury apartment with 2 other people for $1300/month, BUT it was in the Bronx. A shuttle was provided both ways, but the commute was ~25 minutes. I had a friend who moved with his boyfriend to New Jersey, paying $2200 together. However, there's a toll booth that charges $10 or so for the car - that drives up the budget. It's something to consider though. 3. Not sure about int'l student loan, sorry. I'm domestic.

Congratulations everyone! I recently graduated from SIPA in December and will be starting work in February. Feel free to AMA about SIPA.

I counted six typos in one of my SOPs and still got accepted, so I'll second the notion that spelling mistakes will not end your application.

In terms of admissions, yes. But I would be wary of applying for safeties just for the sake of being accepted somewhere; graduate school is a significant financial commitment, and you should only apply to schools you would be happy attending.

For $$$ reasons, it may be better that it isn't. Unless you have a comparable offer, then there is no reason to decline the internship. You're not really listing your choices; in a vacuum everybody will tell you that an internship is better than none.

I'm assuming the internship is either in New York or D.C., so the only concern is whether the experience is worth spending upwards of $3,000-$5,000 for a summer placement. If the internship is in the same department as your dream job, then go for it. If your school has a decent endowment, they will often have money set aside for unpaid internships in a relevant field.

Refer to this website for a ranking of top Master's programs. SAIS + All the Ivy league programs require strong quantitative skills. Their curriculums are econ heavy. Can't really give you more information unless you list your work experience, research, and honors. Top 10 is easy, but for most Master's programs in IR, the hard part is getting funding.