ATLBEAR99

I'm trying to figure out what programs to apply for this fall and could use some advice. I graduated in Spring 2022 with a bachelors degree in "quantitative social science" from Emory University. My degree is pretty much a joint major between data science and political science. For the last year, I've worked as a data analyst for a policy research team inside a large national non-profit. I really love my job, as I get to do quantitative research on policy while also getting to do some "internal consulting" with our various programmatic teams when needed. I'm really happy being in this type of applied research role and would like to stick with this type of work, but just work my way up to being more of a research director running a policy research team. Obviously that's years away from now, but that's my general goal. Pretty much everyone I work with has a graduate degree of some sort, mostly masters, but I have noticed on the research side of public policy there are a good number of folks with PhD's too. I fully recognize that I need to get a graduate degree to move upwards, but I'm really conflicted on which degree to get for a variety of reasons. I've been mulling over getting a masters vs Phd for awhile and I feel like both are reasonable options, but I'm not sure what is more ideal. Since my end goal is to be a research director type of role, I'm not really sure if a masters or PhD would be better for getting to that point. I really would like to reach the point of setting my own research agenda and running a small team to work on that, which I feel like a PhD gives more credence too. I don't particularly care where I work (academia, think tank, public sector, private, etc). I'm willing to work in academia, but I understand that job market is horrendous so its not a goal of mine to be a professor. I also have seen for other non-profits and some think tanks, folks with masters seeming to get pretty high up. So not sure which degree best helps me get to my career goals. Another reason I feel conflicted is that I think a PhD would give me better training, especially considering where I already am and what I want to do. In my undergrad program, I did a pretty robust amount of coursework in stats + data science methods(full calculus sequence, linear algebra, probability & statistics, linear regression analysis, some elective coursework in NLP and data viz) and now regularly spend a big chunk of my work day in Rstudio. As a part of my job, I've also ended up learning a lot more about databases, geospatial analysis, simple machine learning models, programming with API's, etc. And I would like to continue to expand upon that knowledge and get into more complex topics in the realm of stats and CS. And even when I look at at some of the public policy masters that also are marketed with data analytics, it seems like a lot of it would be a refresher and filling in some gaps, but not learning much new material. On the other hand, I've noticed a lot of PhD programs tend to be more flexible in the coursework you take and are more willing to let you take classes from their stats & CS departments, which I think would also be a large benefit for me. My research work will likely stay rather quantitative and computationally focused, so I would like to spend more time adding onto my current skills. Also I'm not sure how my research interests would fit well into a masters degree program. I'm interested in urban and social policy, in particular how housing policy affects neighborhood dynamics and resident access to public/private amenities. However, another huge interest of mine is how social and political dynamics affect policy-making and implementation. I want to do research on how politicians, media, and just regular folks speech effect the policy-making process. Also with advances in NLP, I think there are a ton of interesting ways to study the effect of public speech on policy. It's also admittedly a niche research area(using big data techniques to study how people talk about urban/social policy) so I'm not sure if a masters degree program would have the resources to help with me studying that. Obviously research interests can and will change, but I feel like my interests tend to stem into other domain areas enough that I feel hesitant to do a masters. So I've given a lot of reasons for why I want to do a Phd, but there are a lot of reasons to just get a masters. I can get a masters degree way faster than a PhD, which would be really nice. Living on a PhD stipend for 5 years does not excite me at all. I grew up without much money, so I know I can handle it, but I've really enjoyed making a living wage the last year. Its been nice to be able to go out regularly and not pinch every penny. Also realistically, a lot (vast majority) of non-academic jobs don't need a PhD even if it would be nice, so it could be a waste of 3 years of my life to get a Phd. I know that's a lot of thoughts babbled into text, but I would love if anyone could give me some advice on what type of program to lean towards.