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Boolakanaka

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  1. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from dammit_bobby97 in best US cities without a car   
    BTW, Portland is older than San Francisco and has much better comprehensive both public transportation and bike lanes....
  2. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to GradSchoolGrad in MPP - deciding between GW, Georgetown and Brandeis!   
    So realistically, you have 5 choices. I think your challenge is identifying what trade offs are you more willing to make and what trade offs are you less willing to make.
    So lets do this one by one.
    - Brandeis - just drop them period. Unless you really want to do local Boston activism, they really don't have much value for you. The program is basically amateur hour and their student's don't exactly have competitive outcomes. Even the stars that career service spotlight aren't doing anything special (AKA: run of the mill stuff in other schools)
    - Syracuse Maxwell - this is probably the best academic school. If you have any ambitions to go for your PhD, this is the best option.
    - U. Chicago Harris - this is the best school if you want to focus hard on urban and housing policy from a combined academic/applied approach. I would argue they have more a sophisticated quant than Georgetown and much better applied opportunities. I think it is important to explain where the bad student experiences come from rather than paint with a broad brush.
    a. U. Chicago Harris is a terrible place for international students because it isn't exactly an international city.
    b. The size of the program makes it challenging for those who don't try to be proactively social
    c. The intensity of the quant creates a lot of anxiety
    From a pure career potential perspective, I would choose this one.
    - Georgetown McCourt - this gives you the most career flexibility between the brand and the quant skills that you learn. Just be aware you'll be on your own career wise. You also won't have too many peers or faculty to help you with your policy area of interest. This is especially true since urban and housing policy is a rather niche field once people realize that getting involved means financial modeling, zoning policy, and land management laws. If you are okay with striking it out on your own academically and career wise but take advantage of everything DC  has to offer, this is a good option.
    - NYU Wagner MSPP - this is a good option if you want to just whirlwind into a NYC internship while at school and hopefully land a job from there. Basically, not have a minimum real grad academic or community experience and get a degree stamped. NYU Wagner is infamous for have a very weak community experience and peer support.
    - Georgetown Trachtenburg - I think of this as the all around compromise option. They aren't particularly good at one thing, but there are no major drawbacks. Your career would be based heavily upon what series of internships you get from the DC area. You arguably get the bare bones with quant, but enough to make you on par with the average. I do like how GW Policy students tend to be the nicest and most supportive among all the ones I encountered. They have the 3rd weakest brand and alumni of your roster after Brandeis and Wagner (arguably they have large numbers of alumni, but the affinity isn't that strong). I think of GW as the objective lowest branded school where you are still within striking distance to most prestige jobs, but then if you do want a prestige job you are going to have to work your butt off networking unless you have a special status or a Congressman's son/daughter.
  3. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from elderflower35 in Environmental Management and Policy 2023   
    I teach at YES. I would like to think all the admitted students are exceptional, that said, students admitted straight from undergrad usually have a demonstrative history of a career in the environment. 
  4. Like
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from rockclimberenthusiast in Environmental Management and Policy 2022   
    I am not super exact with these numbers, but I recall reading something around 12-14 percent, but that was precovid, and I know there is a lot of interest in graduate environmental programs, so it might be closer to about 10-12 percent.
  5. Like
    Boolakanaka reacted to rockclimberenthusiast in Yale MEM vs. Columbia SIPA MPA   
    Hahah alright, thanks for the confidence boost. Would it be too much to ask what course you teach? If I accept, I'm just curious what the probability will be that I'll be in your classroom haha. 
    On a different note, I will be going to the Open House later this month to envision myself on campus and get a feel for the community so maybe I'll run into you there!
  6. Like
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from rockclimberenthusiast in Yale MEM vs. Columbia SIPA MPA   
    I will reach out to you later, as I prefer to preserve some element of anonymity.
  7. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to kaflake in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    Awkward interviews:
     
    so all of my interviews were a little awkward and I stressed a lot about it. But after speaking with a professor at one of the schools I was accepted at, they told me the reason interviewers are not as inquisitive and don’t ask follow up questions is because they are tying to be fair and unbiased. They want to ask every applicant the same questions and not show favoritism during the interview.
     
    My advice is to practice your answers and to find ways to elaborate where you can. Don’t stress and just be clear about your work and goals. 
  8. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to YaleMFAThrowaway in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    Hi all, Yale MFA alum here who is lurking bc I have friends applying this year and this forum was so helpful when I was an applicant. I wanted to clear up stuff about Yale's financial aid and provide my own numbers for some transparency. 
    Yes, Yale looks at your parents income (and spouse's if applicable). It doesn't matter if you're 23 or 50. You can petition to have your parents income not considered, but your parents not financially supporting you isn't considered a valid reason. I was able to have my father's income waived because I am estranged from him. I had to submit letters from family friends and divorce court documents to support my case.
    My mother was making $90k and I was making $45k when I filed for financial aid. I ended up getting ~$25k in aid my first year and ~$35k my second year. I graduated with $21k in student debt. 
    Aid varies a lot year-by-year, depending on how much the school has raised. There have been years when everyone's tuition is covered. When I was a student, students were getting a little less. Still most people were getting some aid. I don't think I know anyone who took out $100k in loans. 
    I have mixed feelings about them asking for your parents' income, but I understand that they want to prioritize giving aid to students who can't fall back on their parents. There's a lot of nepo-babies in the art world.   
    My advice is to set a number for yourself of how much student debt you're willing to take on. For me, that number was $20k and only if I was accepted into a school that I felt like would really push my career forwards. No school is a golden ticket, but Yale did put me in a very good position to grow my career. 
  9. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to YaleMFAThrowaway in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    I think it's very possible that most students in the past few years have received full funding. The school has a different Dean from my time, which is one of the larger factors in fundraising.
    Best of luck!
  10. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to SocialKonstruct in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    In any case, I did apply to two programs at Yale. First, I will see whether I get in. Second, I will see what money they will give me.
    Plus the community of Yalies are pretty nice. One of my close friends attends there and she LOVES it.
    So no regrets.
  11. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from SocialKonstruct in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    Wow, for someone going into graduate education you don't seem really into research but rather conflated to anecdotal opinions and gossip.
    Here, I will provide you some facts: The average debt for master's of fine arts students at Yale turns out to be $21,573 — a significant but manageable sum--as reported by the NYT.
  12. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from SocialKonstruct in MFA 2023 Freak Out Forum   
    The hype has some legitimacy.....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Yale_School_of_Art_alumni
  13. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from GradSchoolGrad in Environmental Management and Policy 2023   
    Quick Q; why not YSE?
  14. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from GradSchoolGrad in Lack of development experience for IDev/MPA-ID kind programs?   
    Why you are mad homie?
    If you think you are Kofi Annan, go ahead a get your groove on, and leave this board and resplend us with some peace and quiet.....
  15. Like
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from GradSchoolGrad in Dating ethics?   
    I go by two things: one, if you gotta ask, you probably know the answer; two, don't ask anybody here, they know nothing about your institution, go directly to HR, they will have a specific answer for you.
  16. Like
    Boolakanaka reacted to Dr. Old Bill in Hello from the Other Side   
    Hey folks -- Old Bill here, reporting in for the first time in several years. Now that I've finished my Ph.D., I figured I would weigh in on a few things I learned throughout the process in the hopes that it will help your decision about applying to graduate programs, or what to do if you actually get accepted to one.

    First, a brief update on my experience. In a nutshell, I very much enjoyed the process of obtaining the Ph.D. I managed to do it in five years, though fair warning: I'm one of only two people in my cohort (which had around a dozen Ph.D. admits and several M.A. / Ph.D.'s) who got through it in that time. I think it's starting to become more common to take as much time as you have funding for, though my own personal circumstances (including a touch of "vaulting ambition," as Macbeth would say) caused me to want to finish in five years, no matter what. As of right now, I'm still not entirely sure what the next academic year holds, though I have secured adjuncting locally, which I'm fine with. I've had several interviews over the past six weeks, and that's apparently unusual -- it's more typical to not receive interviews until you actually have the degree in hand. But I think that may have more to do with a shift in employment expectations than anything unique about me personally.

    Anyhow, thinking about the job market is something comfortably down the road for many of you, though I'm guessing you've already had a great many people tell you about how awful the academic job market is. They're all correct, of course. If you have a fairly limited idea of what kind of institution you want to work at (i.e. an R1 institution, a SLAC etc.), and are adamant you need to teach your special subfield (i.e. 18th century, literature and medicine etc.), you're likely going to face a lot of disappointment. I applied quite broadly -- to generalist positions at institutions of all kinds, ranging from R1s and R2s to community colleges to SLACs to HBCUs and others. Most of those were tenure track jobs, but some one-year positions and a few seemingly permanent full-time gigs were sprinkled in there too. To be clear, I was never indiscriminate about where I applied, but was instead open to a lot of options and adapting as needed. Out of forty-four applications, I've had four interviews (thus far), which has a yield of one interview out of eleven applications. And that's considered good! I say all this relatively personal stuff simply to highlight that you ought to be aware of what the situation is like before you even decide to draft those Ph.D. program application materials (assuming an academic job is your initial hope, that is). As for myself, I was quite aware of the state of the market when I started down this path, and nothing I've experienced has surprised me too much. Many of the folks I know who have burned out, disappeared, or otherwise turned against the very idea of an academic career have done so out of disillusionment -- not having a realistic sense of how the hard work of a Ph.D. (and it's very, very hard at times) doesn't pave a clear road to the seemingly glorious tenure-track position. So don't be deluded. You can spend five, six, seven years of doing this and be faced with poverty and no secure job prospects. That's simply true. The question is whether or not you are mentally prepared to do that, and whether the payoff is worth it (to you personally) in the long run. It certainly was for me, but in this I do have to admit I'm something of an exception.

    Assuming you still want to go down this path ("no power in the 'verse can stop me," I hear you cry...), I just have a few tips that I didn't quite glean from GradCafe's heyday. First, program fit is important, but advisor fit is equally so, if not more. If you're in the enviable position of having multiple offers once your applications are out there, make a point of talking to as many of your potential advisors as possible. And here's a very, very, very important point: don't default to the person with the best publication record or reputation. That only matters in some rare circumstances. It is far more important to find an advisor who you vibe with -- someone who has the same kind of working style as you, or has the kinds of expectations of you that you want. And here's another related very, very, very important point. Hell, I'll even put it in all caps: YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE YOUR ADVISOR. This process inevitably feels terrifying when you're early in the program, but there are almost never any hard feelings on the part of the advisor, and it's exceedingly rare for them to be at all vindictive. I changed my advisor after my comprehensive exams -- part of it was due to fit over field (I'm a poetry person, my first advisor was not), but the other part of it was working style. My first advisor was a very top-down taskmaster sort, which worked great for a lot of his other students. But I realized that that style doesn't work well for me. I like more of a hands-off approach, and to feel that I can work on my own for a month or two with self-imposed deadlines rather than advisor-imposed ones. I switched to an advisor that was more this way, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed the dissertation process as a result. I did my own thing, reached out as needed, received a boatload of constructive criticism when I was ready for it, and never felt pressured or coerced. The moral of the story here is that your choice of advisor may be the single most important choice you make in a Ph.D. program. I put that in bold, because it's something I really never expected once admitted.

    One other tip is something that I'd heard, but never really internalized: think about publication options early and often in your graduate career. You're going to start out green, of course...but literally everyone does. Once you've made it through a year of the program, you'll likely have a good sense of A.) whether you want to keep doing it, and B.) what, specifically, you want to focus on. Yes, I know that you'll enter the program thinking you already know your focus, but more often than not students switch it up. And that's to be expected. But publications are a key metric on the job market for most positions. I did manage to get a nice publication during the writing of my dissertation, but I do wish that I had been thinking more seriously about it beforehand. The jury's out on whether having a single academic publication will hurt me on the market, but whether it does or not, the simple truth is that more can only be helpful (and ignore people who tell you it's too early -- editors and reviewers will screen out substandard work; let them be the ones to do it).

    This post is getting long, so I'll just end with this little suggestion that I'm sure is going to sound impossibly twee: approach the academic path (from applying to Ph.D. programs to your scholarship in one and beyond) from a standpoint of joy. I'm not trying to Marie Kondo you here, or spout toxic positivity, but my observation is that a large portion of success and well-being in academia is attitudinal. There are many bitter academics out there who don't seem to love what they do. Resist that. It doesn't have to be the norm. Moreover, most of the academics I have gravitated toward do love their work and their students. Approaching this from a standpoint of joy simply seems to work far better than from a standpoint of "struggling through" or "grinding away." Find what you love about the process, and embrace it.

    Hopefully this is helpful to some of you! I know GradCafe isn't as populous as it used to be, but I'm guessing there are still enough lurkers to make a post like this worthwhile. Be well, folks, and good luck in your academic journeys!
  17. Downvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to d2ear in Princeton SPIA MPA vs. HKS MPP   
    Not exactly, with $175k a year, the person is getting roughly 8k per month post-tax, 401k, insurances...etc without bonus. Paying off student loans with that monthly income won't hurt much. 
  18. Upvote
    Boolakanaka reacted to prokem in Environmental Management and Policy 2022   
    Adding to what @Boolakanakasaid, which I agree with - at YSE there are a  couple of urban planning classes and a very strong urban learning community. Can’t speak for the other MEM schools but I imagine they might have some too, to scratch your urban planning itch
  19. Like
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from prokem in Environmental Management and Policy 2022   
    I think you or more or less correct.  Urban planning is much more nuanced and specific to that space. That said, it does afford its own positive attributes. 
  20. Like
    Boolakanaka reacted to GradSchoolGrad in Seeking Advice About Studying in D.C and Choosing a Program   
    1. Where you take classes don't matter (unless you network your way into something), which does happen.
    2. I know Harvard guys who got rejected from elite grad programs because they ended up is non-profit jockeys who struggled to get promoted. So they ended up at my policy school (McCourt oodles over Ivy Leagues even if their resume is questionable). At the end of the day, the resume only outlines, but your essays have to tell a story. If you can't tell a coherent story (and this is all about how you tell your story), you will struggle to get scholarships, let alone get into the best schools.
    3. Right now there is a labor shortage. If you think more broadly -sales, start up, anything, you'll probably find something cool to excel at in the next 9 months or so.
    4. AU SIS is a better option than both those programs, especially since you are getting funding. However, AU SIS won't sling shot you to the top. It isn't about elitism or reputation - but the law of average. Among an AU SIS grad program group of 10, probably 1 or 2 will impress me. Within an HKS/SAIS/MSFS grad program group of 10, probably 6 or 7 with. Those 6-7 will probably get the better jobs and get the opportunities that you can network with + help you out in the long run.
    5. There is a difference between academics and career path. You can say you only want to learn certain things all you want. However, the job market likes to see well rounded people who had both range and depth. Its great you have depth interest, but the programs that pipeline into the best jobs are the mainline IR programs of the Big 7 (MSFS, HKS, Elliot, Fletcher, SIPA, SAIS, and SIS) - although I would count SIS last. I would even put Monterey Institute and Yale Jackson over SIS, but those two programs are too small, where as SIS is huge. 
    This comes down to if you want to go after getting your foot in the door now, or play the long game to optimize your chances to sling shot with a better application result next year.
  21. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from Bails in International and Security Graduate Programs   
    Frankly, because many Senators like to hire from their own state, schools within that state can be a feature that gets you in the door.  The first time I was hired it was because the Senator was looking specifically to hire a person from his state--the second time, I was brought on a the chief counsel to the committee.
  22. Like
    Boolakanaka reacted to GradSchoolGrad in Yale Jackson Master of Advanced Study (M.A.S.) in Global Affairs   
    Go to Yale Jackson period. McCourt struggles to provide career support for international students since they are overwhelmed with international students who struggle to put together a functional resume.
  23. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from PolicyApplier in I Need Help Deciding   
    Resist buying the flashy red car---it initially looks cool and then you are stuck with something that takes a lot out of the pocketbook and you don't get a lot of practical usage.  Nothing for nothing, this particular MA will most likely not come with any real financial assistance, and in most cases, is a pathway for potential  PhD candidates, ie, entirely different career path.
     
    I would be disciplined in your choices to career goals, that is to say, don't get distracted, and all of your decisions should have the following posit: how does this appreciably contribute to career goals?
  24. Like
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from Brian100 in I Need Help Deciding   
    Resist buying the flashy red car---it initially looks cool and then you are stuck with something that takes a lot out of the pocketbook and you don't get a lot of practical usage.  Nothing for nothing, this particular MA will most likely not come with any real financial assistance, and in most cases, is a pathway for potential  PhD candidates, ie, entirely different career path.
     
    I would be disciplined in your choices to career goals, that is to say, don't get distracted, and all of your decisions should have the following posit: how does this appreciably contribute to career goals?
  25. Upvote
    Boolakanaka got a reaction from prokem in Environmental Management and Policy 2022   
    If forestry is your area of interest, then its Yale--it has a long storied history and many of the leaders in this space, all went to the previous YSF. I also would say its overall program is much established and comprehensive.
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