hindsightis2022

As mentioned above in relation to the MSCAPP program at UChicago, the MSPPM-DA program is similarly not billed as a pure policy program. In fact, to date, I've actually only taken 1 pure policy class for the degree. Also, Heinz in general isn't just a policy school, it also is an information systems school, among other things. I should also clarify that I want to work for non-profits/for the federal government/generally in the "social good" space and harness data science tools to help these organizations achieve their public-service oriented goals. So, when applying to grad school, I was specifically looking for institutions who do work in the public interest technology space and I specifically didn't apply to a typical MPP program because I didn't want to just learn about policy/the policymaking process. However, I also didn't want a pure data science program, because these programs typically focus on using data science to solve private sector business problems which I was not interested in. There are programs that are emerging now (MSCAPP, MSDSPP, etc) that seek to blend data science, machine learning, and social good efforts and I was looking for grad programs that would be able to combine these worlds together. Heinz just hasn't quite been what it was billed to be, which is what I'm trying to get across here (perhaps a bit harshly).

For context, I'm a second-year DA student at Heinz who came into this program wanting to be a data scientist. During a fall visitation weekend and through multiple emails with staff during the application process, I asked if it was possible to become a data scientist through this program. I got vague assurances at the time that this was possible. From my experience and the experience of my peers, this program is not worth it if you want to be a data scientist. Please do yourself a favor and look elsewhere, because I really wish that I had. Here’s a couple of reasons behind my above assertion: There are too many required classes that provide little to no useful value. For instance, if you have less than 3 years of work experience, you’re required to take a public speaking class for 6 weeks, and you are required to take a 6 week course to learn how to write policy memos. Furthermore, you have to take a 6 week course in “organizational design and implementation” where you read HBS cases and decide how you would have approached them. Finally, you have to take 6 units of a “finance” class that is a really basic class where you just learn how to read financial statements. This is not helpful at all for someone who wants to be a data scientist. The rigor of classes here is… questionable. There are a few classes, namely the required Database class for DA students and Big Data and Large-Scale Computing that are actually rigorous, well-taught, and useful. The rest of the classes either provide too surface-level of an approach to the topics discussed or try to tackle a topic that really should have been covered in a semester in 6 weeks, leaving you with little real comprehension of a topic without a lot of outside work on your own. There is a lack of understanding in many classes of real-world tools that should be incorporated in class. For instance, it would make sense, particularly in the programming intensive classes, to mandate the use of GitHub or similar tools for practice with version control. Anyone who is going to program in a real data science job will use GitHub/GitLab and therefore it would be useful to become much more skilled in it through a grad program. This would also help to easily create a portfolio of work to show future employers. Also, (this has changed) but for my class, we were taught machine learning/data mining in R instead of in Python (scikit-learn) which is more often than not the industry standard. There are a few classes taught by professors who have more non-academic experience who help to clue students into the real world tools but this is pretty rare. Heinz College in general is trying to be too many things at one time and therefore is unsuccessful in being particularly good at one particular thing. The biggest reason peers of mine and myself chose this program over something like UChicago’s MSCAPP program is because of Heinz’s financial aid which is substantial. It was substantial enough for me that I will graduate without any student loans, for context. I am doubting, however, whether the financial savings are worth the lack of educational rigor and course flexibility offered by Heinz. My advice here would be to apply to the MSPPM-DA program for the financial aid package and use it to try to get a better financial aid offer at UChicago (MSCAPP), Georgetown (MSDSPP), or some other comparable program. I'm happy to answer more questions about this! I really wish someone had been much more direct with me in the application process about who this program is best suited for. I don't want someone else to make the same mistake that I did and leave the Heinz program being as frustrated as I am with my overall experience.