GSPP - Pros and Cons

[nahamah]

I was admitted to Berkeley, and I'm trying to learn more about the program. I know that the curriculum focuses on methodological training rather than content areas and that the program is fairly small, but there's a lot I can't tell from their website.

Here are some issues that are important to me, not necessarily in order of importance:

-Quantitative training and courses about the policy-making progress. How does Berkeley's core compare to GPPI's?

-Social policy program, especially regarding anti-poverty and low-wage labor market issues

-National reputation (I know most Berkeley grads work in CA - how highly is the program regarded in DC)?

-Contact with faculty

-Close-knit community of students who are interested in social justice

I also got in to GPPI, and I am waiting to hear from Harvard, Princeton, and Michigan's masters' programs, and GWU's PhD program.

Thanks in advance!

[cbcbcb]

I was also wondering about this. I was admitted to GSPP (no funding) and USC's SPPD (Dean's Merrit Scholarhip for full tuition). I currently live in the Bay Area, though am from LA orginally. I would much prefer to stay up north and know Berkeley has an excellent reputation in CA. However, unless I can find some way to get some funding out of Berkeley I'm not sure the program pros outweigh a future of debt. Any insight on the quality of Berkeley or USC's MPP program would be helpful. I am interested in environmental policy and foreign policy.

[egmpp2010]

I was admitted to Berkeley, and I'm trying to learn more about the program. I know that the curriculum focuses on methodological training rather than content areas and that the program is fairly small, but there's a lot I can't tell from their website.

Here are some issues that are important to me, not necessarily in order of importance:

-Quantitative training and courses about the policy-making progress. How does Berkeley's core compare to GPPI's?

-Social policy program, especially regarding anti-poverty and low-wage labor market issues

-National reputation (I know most Berkeley grads work in CA - how highly is the program regarded in DC)?

-Contact with faculty

-Close-knit community of students who are interested in social justice

So I say all of the following with some major caveats -- I'm just a person in a similar position to both of you. Personally, I'm leaning towards GSPP, although I'm in the Bay Area so it has an added bonus of not causing me to uproot my whole life. I'm not an expert on all these matters but I can share my thinking.

In terms of reputation, the bottom line about Berkeley is that most of its graduate programs across the University (Economics, Sociology, Political Science, its Law School, and its Business School) are among the best in the country. Any way you slice it, Berkeley is one of the best graduate universities in the country, especially in the social sciences. Goldman is no exception and it comes with the opportunity to take electives in other graduate programs. You can definitely find well-respected experts in all of these areas -- environmental, social policy, international, etc. (If you're talking about anti-poverty work, this is the school with Clinton's former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who has been in the news recently critiquing the Obama administration from the left.) To me, one of the major advantages of Berkeley over Georgetown and USC is how much the university has to offer.

I think there are plenty of Goldman graduates in D.C. and in other parts of the country, although certainly there is a higher concentration of them in the Bay Area and California. If you look at their employment statistics, a full 26% of 2008 grads went to work in DC (http://gspp.berkeley.edu/career_resources/generalinfo.html). Annually the school arranges a networking trip to DC and they've got plenty of alums there.

One thing that distinguishes Goldman from SPPD (and somewhat from GPPI) is that it's only a school of policy analysis. SPPD is larger than its public policy program; in fact, there are more students in the Public Administration program than the MPP and then there are several other programs besides. You definitely end up taking classes with students in all those programs. Whether that's a plus or a minus is up to you. If you want a more management-flavored version of the MPP, I think there is a good case for SPPD over GSPP.

The other impression I've gotten -- and I could be off about this --- is that both GPPI and SPPD students tend to intern throughout their graduate studies while GSPP students are not interning throughout school (although they are doing policy analysis projects for outside organizations). So I think it's about what you want graduate school experience to be -- if it's a time to do lots of internships and test out a variety of organizations or to hit the books hard.

For me, I'm interested in really honing my analytic and quantitative skills, so I think GSPP is probably the best fit for me. But, at the end of the day, I don't think the marginal differences between these schools are going to make or break my career. I honestly think luck in life will play a bigger factor than which grad school I choose. But I very am lucky to have the choices.

Edited March 10, 2010 by egmpp2010