MPP / IR / Econs in USyd

[irusz]

hi all. saw that schools that were mentioned are usually top 10 with some french / sg schools thrown in after scanning through the threads. anyone has any idea about sydney? any advice for the stated courses if it's recommended to do it or not? fees will range between 80k - 100k. 

my background is kinda rough. bad grades for my degree from a satellite uni in finance. have been working a few years now in many kinds of jobs - data quality in a bank, web developer for 2 months,  industry research and reporting in another bank, research internship w a banking magazine.  

Taking a course in IR is to satisfy what i couldn't do for my undergrad which has made me very unhappy since. MPP / Econs seem to be a more practical choice with some leeway to be exposed to IR as well. I am not sure if the IR / MPP degrees can boost my employability since i do not have much concrete experience.

Appreciate any responses. Thank you.

[ExponentialDecay]

I mean if you're okay spending 100k to "satisfy what you couldn't do for undergrad", go right ahead. Otherwise, econ is a useful MA if you're okay with being some form of data analyst at least for the first few years of your career, and unless Australia requires MPPs for government positions, an MPP and an IR degree are the same in terms of employability (that is, not great), and in general the differences between them come down to curriculum, in which case a given MPP program can actually be more similar to a given IR program than some other MPP program.

[irusz]

5 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

I mean if you're okay spending 100k to "satisfy what you couldn't do for undergrad", go right ahead. Otherwise, econ is a useful MA if you're okay with being some form of data analyst at least for the first few years of your career, and unless Australia requires MPPs for government positions, an MPP and an IR degree are the same in terms of employability (that is, not great), and in general the differences between them come down to curriculum, in which case a given MPP program can actually be more similar to a given IR program than some other MPP program.

hey. thanks for your reply. i'm actually from singapore. one university launched a public policy undergrad course a few years ago. usually how it goes here is that when a new prog is launched it probably indicates a demand for it.

for usyd, the IR/MPP courses offered have different specialisations (US studies / political economy/ economics / economic policy etc) so it's just broad and jumbled up. MA econs is insanely tough and i am extremely weak in understanding economics concepts (not math) but i saw that most job openings have rather nice pay check. haha 

just trying to get the best bang for my buck without jeopardising my grades again.

[ExponentialDecay]

51 minutes ago, irusz said:

hey. thanks for your reply. i'm actually from singapore. one university launched a public policy undergrad course a few years ago. usually how it goes here is that when a new prog is launched it probably indicates a demand for it.

for usyd, the IR/MPP courses offered have different specialisations (US studies / political economy/ economics / economic policy etc) so it's just broad and jumbled up. MA econs is insanely tough and i am extremely weak in understanding economics concepts (not math) but i saw that most job openings have rather nice pay check. haha 

just trying to get the best bang for my buck without jeopardising my grades again.

A lot of people seem to have this misconception so I might as well address it. When I say that policy programs aren't super employable, I'm not saying that they're useless degrees or that there's no demand for them. I'm saying that employability after an MPP is not a sure thing. It's not like an engineering (or an econ) degree where you basically just need to graduate in order to get some type of job. If you coast through your MPP taking random classes and enjoying yourself without taking a lot of steps towards some sort of concrete and reachable goal, you won't get a job. You can absolutely build an employable profile with an MPP and many people do every year, but you need to know at least somewhat what you're doing. MPPs work for many people because they have a broad curriculum that allows you to tailor the program to the skillset you want to develop (as opposed to shoehorning you into a very narrow track that has everyone studying the same thing, as happens in economics), but that means you're largely on your own when it comes to determining where you're going and how you're going to get there and whether that'll be a successful approach. You trade freedom for security. Them's the breaks.

I'm not sure why you're considering economics programs if you're not good at and don't want to do economics, since the economics obviously won't end once you're finished with the program: you'd have to do economics day in and day out in your career for many years. Nobody will cut you checks for not doing the work you were hired to do.

Maybe you need to take some time to think about what you want out of life.

[irusz]

43 minutes ago, ExponentialDecay said:

A lot of people seem to have this misconception so I might as well address it. When I say that policy programs aren't super employable, I'm not saying that they're useless degrees or that there's no demand for them. I'm saying that employability after an MPP is not a sure thing. It's not like an engineering (or an econ) degree where you basically just need to graduate in order to get some type of job. If you coast through your MPP taking random classes and enjoying yourself without taking a lot of steps towards some sort of concrete and reachable goal, you won't get a job. You can absolutely build an employable profile with an MPP and many people do every year, but you need to know at least somewhat what you're doing. MPPs work for many people because they have a broad curriculum that allows you to tailor the program to the skillset you want to develop (as opposed to shoehorning you into a very narrow track that has everyone studying the same thing, as happens in economics), but that means you're largely on your own when it comes to determining where you're going and how you're going to get there and whether that'll be a successful approach. You trade freedom for security. Them's the breaks.

I'm not sure why you're considering economics programs if you're not good at and don't want to do economics, since the economics obviously won't end once you're finished with the program: you'd have to do economics day in and day out in your career for many years. Nobody will cut you checks for not doing the work you were hired to do.

Maybe you need to take some time to think about what you want out of life.

hey thanks for your reply again. 

yes agree with the first part. i saw on some forum somewhere - 'there are no useless degrees, only useless people' - which i find rather comforting. so i was counting the units and was hoping to squeeze in the more useful units (around 6 of them) like economics and research. despite that, i am concerned the degree title plays a part in getting an interview hence the econ MA. 

actually the econ ma falls in line with what i want to do : I want to enter fields reporting on how policies / political movements affect a business / a group of population / an industry. whereas i assume roles in the public sector roles would revolve around allocating resources to improve the well-being of the people / for political gains. the MPP just happens to throw in lesser econs with IR and of course the policy making process - i guess another role around for public policy in private sector is to help businesses liaise with policy makers and assist in aligning policies.

so im just taking the masters to help me gel the overlapping understanding between policy and business / policy and social well-being (if such things exist and of course my IR dreams). my latest job made me realised how dumb i am in analysing. i wanted to write something about comparing the impact of a change in consumer tax on consumption when it coincides with a recession with one when there wasn't a recession but my analysis was pathetic. 

am i being too naive and hopeful? hahaha. well ive been trying to let econ seep into me the last 10 years but its baffling how i find the concepts so hard to understand. it's harder than learning a foreign language.