OneMiramar

Hi everyone, 
I am a second year student at GPS (IE, China). I assume many of you are at UCSD already for prep, and I look forward to meeting you all in September! As a current student, I would just like to add on to the points made in the post above mine: 
- In our class (a year after Karoku_valentine), we had at least two people fail the Quant/Econ required classes; neither of them are in the program anymore. So if you are not someone with a previous background in these subjects and are struggling to pick it up, please find a study group and/or friends to study with ASAP! The curve does help most people pass the classes even if they are struggling, but there are outliers, and if you aren't a Quant person, don't wait too long and let yourself be the unlucky one that has to retake the course. 
- Career Services has a large network for private sector jobs. David Robinson in particular is an invaluable resource and I encourage all of you to be proactive and get in touch with him early! For government sector work though, IRPS/GPS has virtually no network outside of California. Compared to the traditional power programs in the East Coast, UCSD has no significant network to speak of in DC, all there currently is are individual graduates sparsely spread out amongst various three/four-lettered agencies (Other schools have blocks of alumni within these agencies). From what I've seen, UCSD has no plan or intention of developing its DC connections, so if you are attending GPS but you want to do federal government work once you graduate, you need to get a jump-start on that by yourself as Career Services won't be much help.
- As Karoku_valentine mentioned, graduate placement (within the US, at least) is one of the biggest weaknesses of GPS, so be prepared to have to start earlier and do more to distinguish yourself from East Coast MIAs. To me, doing clubs (and taking on leadership responsibilities) and unique extracurriculars (of which there are plenty of in San Diego!) is the best way to go about this; in job and internship searches everyone is going to have a glittering GPA, so you need more than that to stand out in the crowd. Get a start on extracurriculars as soon as the first Trimester starts!
 

Hi everyone, 
I am a second year student at GPS (IE, China). I assume many of you are at UCSD already for prep, and I look forward to meeting you all in September! As a current student, I would just like to add on to the points made in the post above mine: 
- In our class (a year after Karoku_valentine), we had at least two people fail the Quant/Econ required classes; neither of them are in the program anymore. So if you are not someone with a previous background in these subjects and are struggling to pick it up, please find a study group and/or friends to study with ASAP! The curve does help most people pass the classes even if they are struggling, but there are outliers, and if you aren't a Quant person, don't wait too long and let yourself be the unlucky one that has to retake the course. 
- Career Services has a large network for private sector jobs. David Robinson in particular is an invaluable resource and I encourage all of you to be proactive and get in touch with him early! For government sector work though, IRPS/GPS has virtually no network outside of California. Compared to the traditional power programs in the East Coast, UCSD has no significant network to speak of in DC, all there currently is are individual graduates sparsely spread out amongst various three/four-lettered agencies (Other schools have blocks of alumni within these agencies). From what I've seen, UCSD has no plan or intention of developing its DC connections, so if you are attending GPS but you want to do federal government work once you graduate, you need to get a jump-start on that by yourself as Career Services won't be much help.
- As Karoku_valentine mentioned, graduate placement (within the US, at least) is one of the biggest weaknesses of GPS, so be prepared to have to start earlier and do more to distinguish yourself from East Coast MIAs. To me, doing clubs (and taking on leadership responsibilities) and unique extracurriculars (of which there are plenty of in San Diego!) is the best way to go about this; in job and internship searches everyone is going to have a glittering GPA, so you need more than that to stand out in the crowd. Get a start on extracurriculars as soon as the first Trimester starts!
 

Hi everyone,
 
I graduated from IRPS in June of 2014. I have some comments regarding what I have read in this forum so far:
 
1. The quant requirements. In general, I would say they are easy (except maybe for QM1) if you have taken classes on regression or econometrics. You could even waive them (I wish I would have done that). However, if you are, for example, an English major who has never ever taken any Calculus/Economics class in your undergrad, IRPS might be daunting. Pretty much everyone passes and there were three people who were "conditioned" 2 foreigners and one American, but they did fine in the second semester.
 
2. Career services. They are pretty good and could help you. However, you have to understand that they do not get you a job, you are the one doing that. Therefore do not expect to do nothing and get job interviews. They have big networks and always inform you about jobs, but it is your main responsibility to get an internship and a job.
 
3. I have friends who studied at SIPA. In terms of the quality of students and teaching, it seems that both schools are pretty similar, as my friends (exclassmates from college) made the same comments about their fellow classmates and the effort they put into classes. However, I would say that SIPA has better connections and you could get better jobs if you study there, but it is my perception. Also, one American female classmate was disappointed about people not having a job right after finishing classes; I thought she was exaggerating but said schools in DC/New York were better at placing their students. I got a job in Risk Management in a Financial Group in my country like 2-3 months after finishing, it was a change in my career and I do think my education in IRPS was the reason I got it, plus my college is pretty good at the national level.
 
4. RA/TA. I have seen that some students got involved into some projects, but I would say it is definitely less than  one third. For example, the IRPS (now GPS) students become TA's for the classes for the first year (Managerial Econ 2 TA's, Finance 2 TAs, QM1 2 TAs from IRPS, QM2 2 TAs from IRPS, QM3 1 TA from IRPS. Other classes might have one TA or none, as many classes are not that big. However, consider that in order to be a TA you need to have at least A in the class and be familiar with the professor. 
 
5. General classes. I found that most "policy" classes are irrelevant to those working in the private sector, as you do not use them at all (a girl from another class told me the same). Still, I had to take them and realized I could have taken other classes.
 
I do not regret my education there, as I got things from it and now I can have more education on something else. Still you can make the best of your stay; it entirely depends on you.