kb6

Housing is by far the biggest expense in DC, so if you have somewhere to live for free, that's an incredible gift. The debt thing is personal, but in my calculus, 60k is reasonable. I'll be clocking in a bit below that, so obviously I'm a little biased! But again it depends on your age, your lifestyle requirements, your 5-year-plan, what specific field you're looking to enter... In terms of it being 'worth it' in general, in DC a master's degree is basically a requirement to move up, as you may know. So if you want to go into IR, you're almost certainly going to have to pay for a master's eventually. The SAIS network has been great so far, although of course I have only done information-gathering and internship-hunting at this point. I haven't had one alum I've contacted fail to get back to me and offer to at least answer my questions via email. The help you get from SAIS in terms of career services varies based on your needs and your concentration - my concentration has been great about helping us find internships and giving us summer funding, but some students have complained about lack of help in theirs. I think a lot of it is about a willingness to take advantage of the resources being offered, but that's just a personal philosophy/personality thing I suppose. Also it really does help if you have (preferably relevant) work experience, even if it's only a year at a local non-profit. Regarding working while in school - are you talking about DC or Bologna? At both campuses, courses only meet once/week, so you could try to arrange your schedule to have some free days. In DC, I know that many students have internships or jobs (full or part-time), and there are a good number of classes offered at night as well, although I'm not sure if that holds for language classes. If you can pass proficiency upon matriculation, you won't actually need to take a language. In Bologna, there aren't as many night-time classes, and languages are only offered during the day (but just on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - so I suppose you could work on Mondays and Thursdays). But I don't know any students who have non-campus jobs (other than working remotely for former employers), but it's possible I suppose, assuming you have work authorization in Italy.

Your first question would probably better be answered by someone who is a few years out, but in general I would say that going 120k in the hole for an MA in international relations is a bit foolish...especially if you have a better funding option at an equivalent(ish) school, and especially if you think you're going to want to go into idev or non-profit-type work. I am going into some debt, but nothing close to that...I do know people here who are going for it, but in my personal opinion that's only wise if you know for sure that you're going to qualify for something like Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Otherwise it's $1,200/month for the next decade of your life. There are also a lot of people whose families are clearly footing the entire bill. So you're eventually going to be competing for that 50k/year impact investment job with some girl who has been living in a 1-bedroom apartment in Logan Circle while a grad student, whereas you'll be living with roommates in Bethesda until your 35th birthday...Perhaps a little dramatic, but something to consider for sure. Last semester I had class Monday-Friday, and this semester I have class every day but Thursday. One peculiarity of Bologna is that a number of professors fly in from the UK and Germany (and a few other countries), so many classes are Friday/Saturday every other week. So while I have no Thursday class, I have Saturday morning class twice/month. Each course is about 2.5 hrs long (four/semester) + languages which are three 1.5 hr sessions/week (so a total of five courses). Then a lot of students will audit a class in preparation for a core exam, or just out of general interest in the subject. There's a lot of reading, and the econ classes will have weekly or bi-weekly problem sets that can be quite lengthy and involved. I would say that the econ classes are legitimately challenging...a few people have failed them, although the vast majority just stress out to incredible degrees but then end up getting curved into a B or so. So challenging but manageable, in my opinion (although it comes to me a little more easily than some of my friends here). A lot of us have part-time jobs as well, but nothing like the 30 hr/week legit internships that DC students have. It's more like sitting at circulation in the library 10 hrs/week, or doing some research for a professor. So in a way it's nice be able to focus more on school, and then next year we'll get all the crazy interning/DC networking as well. Outside of class and work, there are outside speakers at least twice/week, and academic conferences maybe once/month. A lot of concentrations will arrange teleconferences with DC for speakers that they have there if the time difference works out. There's also a really tight-knit social community here, so there are a lot of student-run events, like career clubs, language clubs, student publications, fundraisers...

Hi all - I'm a current SAIS Europe (i.e. Bologna) student who was active on these boards last year under another username (I'm attempting to retain a little anonymity). I know that decisions should be coming soon (no, don't have any insider info on dates), so I figured I'd open myself up to questions. This board helped me a lot last year with applications and ultimately making a decision, so now I'd like to pay it forward. AMA!