AMA Current Harris MSCAPP Student

[ellien575]

I used this a lot when I was having my many grad school crises (shout out to all my folks that had a PhD-or-industry crisis).

Current MS-CAPP student, second year (so I had around 2 terms in person before we went remote since UChicago is on the quarter system).

Ask me whatever you want!

[kb_sf]

Hey! Thanks for doing this! Curious to hear about what your program outcome ideas were going into the program, and how they’ve changed now (if at all). What are you planning to do after you earn your degree?

Also- were you deciding between CMU Heinz and McCourt DSPP as well? Why’d you decide on chicago?

[ellien575]

Hello! And no problem-- I understand it's much harder to get a feel for schools when campus visits aren't really a thing this year!

I think my program outcome ideas have stayed mostly the same. I came into the program really interested in the intersection of data science and software engineering, but more on the software engineering side. While at CAPP, I've realized I'm definitely more on the software/data engineering side and even less on the data science side than I had previously thought. Many of my classmates are pursuing data science/machine learning careers though!

I was! I got into all three programs and my considerations more or less came down to:

Curriculum: I really liked that CAPP is dual administered with the computer science department and focuses on computer science fundamentals in the first year (alongside MPP coursework). My CS I, CS II, and Databases classes with my CAPP classmates were my most formative in terms of helping me decide what I wanted to focus more on, and I write so much better code after going through CS I. As a CAPP student you get equal preference with computer science masters students for classes, which has also been awesome. An alumna of Heinz had told me she sometimes had trouble getting into upper level analytics classes there, because they weren't technically for her program, so the idea of being in both departments at UChicago was attractive.

Location: I was moving with my partner and job opportunities were a consideration. I'm fond of Pittsburgh, but Chicago just has a lot more opportunities in different industries.

Outcomes: I'll be straight up here-- I had lived in DC for 8-10 years before grad school (including undergrad). Georgetown's location was not a draw for me, I had a pre-existing DC network and didn't feel a deep need to stay in town. I looked at Heinz and Georgetown's outcomes and saw a whole lot of Federal consulting and in general, jobs I had either had, or knew how to get. Harris is a lot more varied (IMO). There are people who go the federal consulting route, but there's a lot of interest in non-profit and community work around the US that I didn't see as much in other programs, and I really wanted that.

Tbh, if you want a direct funnel into federal consulting, Georgetown is your bet, with Heinz a close second, and Harris at the bottom. If you have no DC network and you want to be deep in federal policy, go Georgetown. If you want a strong analytics flavor to your masters and have zero desire to explore more traditional computer science or software engineering coursework, Harris or Heinz are both good bets (obviously I have a Harris bias, but I'm trying to be objective here...).

Will also take a moment here to plug CAPP Slack-- I love the CAPP community and one of my favorite things is alums are still really active posting jobs they come across that are a good fit for CAPP students/alums and also just... hanging out and giving advice. It's not publicly advertised or publicly visible, but when you enroll you are added and it's just the best community I've ever been a part of!

 

That got super long, but hopefully it was helpful!

[MPP2021app]

Thanks so much for this offer! Do you know of anyone who was able to successfully increase their financial aid package? Did they leverage other offers? I received 15k for MSCAPP--is that typically what ppl receive?

[kb_sf]

2 hours ago, ellien575 said:

That got super long, but hopefully it was helpful!

Thank you for your thoughtful response! It's great to hear that there are people who are interested in software/data engineering. I think that a lot of these schools try to bump up the policy coursework in their marketing events and don't want to scare students away by discussing programming in more depth, so I was actually wondering if I would even do well in any of these programs if my goal was to do software/data engineering (which it is!).

Also - love a good slack channel

[ellien575]

2 hours ago, MPP2021app said:

Thanks so much for this offer! Do you know of anyone who was able to successfully increase their financial aid package? Did they leverage other offers? I received 15k for MSCAPP--is that typically what ppl receive?

Yes! I myself did this-- I leveraged my Heinz offer to get more money out of Harris. I don't know if they've already done this, but Admissions will send out a form when they're doing negotiations and you can list your other offers, personal circumstances, etc. Would also add that there are a looot of opportunities to make side $$$. I know a lot of people who do paid research, TAships, grading, etc. 15K is reasonable, but if you have other offers, it's worth asking. They don't have as much money as Heinz, but they'll try and make it work for you.

 

1 hour ago, kb_sf said:

Thank you for your thoughtful response! It's great to hear that there are people who are interested in software/data engineering. I think that a lot of these schools try to bump up the policy coursework in their marketing events and don't want to scare students away by discussing programming in more depth, so I was actually wondering if I would even do well in any of these programs if my goal was to do software/data engineering (which it is!).

Also - love a good slack channel

 Yes! Harris admissions doesn't know as much about the CS side of things so sometimes they're not sure what to say lol.

There are a bunch of people more focused on the software/data engineering route in my class. For example, my coursework this year has included Big Data Application Architecture (CS), Web Development (CS) and Discrete Math (CS) (I got too tired for Algorithms this term) so far, as well as some policy classes like Climate Policy (Harris). But I also have classmates who have taken things like iOS Development, Math for Machine Learning, and more advanced classes in the statistics program.

[hanburger]

@ellien575 thank you so much for posting and answering questions! Three* things on my mind:

* I'm curious how technical a role you and fellow MSCAPP students are looking for post-grad. I'd love to go more towards design research and program eval, for programs that rely on or incorporate technology. Do you think the CS curriculum is overkill for someone who isn't applying to software/data engineering or data science roles? 

* How easy is it to talk with professors who aren't your instructor? Are researchers welcoming/open to a conversation about their research, even if you aren't one of their phd students?

* Maybe 40% of people I met at admitted students' week (for all of Harris, not just CAPP) were coming from private sector/management consulting. Would you say that's ~on par with CAPP (or maybe it was just a random virtual sample thing)? No shade on any career choice! Just want to make sure my sense of the student body is accurate.

Thanks again!

Edited March 9, 2021 by hanburger
Even more questions :D

[MPP2021app]

On 3/1/2021 at 1:58 PM, ellien575 said:

Yes! I myself did this-- I leveraged my Heinz offer to get more money out of Harris. I don't know if they've already done this, but Admissions will send out a form when they're doing negotiations and you can list your other offers, personal circumstances, etc. Would also add that there are a looot of opportunities to make side $$$. I know a lot of people who do paid research, TAships, grading, etc. 15K is reasonable, but if you have other offers, it's worth asking. They don't have as much money as Heinz, but they'll try and make it work for you.

 

 Yes! Harris admissions doesn't know as much about the CS side of things so sometimes they're not sure what to say lol.

There are a bunch of people more focused on the software/data engineering route in my class. For example, my coursework this year has included Big Data Application Architecture (CS), Web Development (CS) and Discrete Math (CS) (I got too tired for Algorithms this term) so far, as well as some policy classes like Climate Policy (Harris). But I also have classmates who have taken things like iOS Development, Math for Machine Learning, and more advanced classes in the statistics program.

Thank you! This is so helpful.

[ellien575]

1 hour ago, hanburger said:

* I'm curious how technical a role you and fellow MSCAPP students are looking for post-grad. I'd love to go more towards design research and program eval, for programs that rely on or incorporate technology. Do you think the CS curriculum is overkill for someone who isn't applying to software/data engineering or data science roles? 

It's super person-dependent! For a sampling, of my closest five CAPP friends, one is looking at data journalism and journalism in general, one is interested in data engineering roles, one is interested in software engineering roles with some data science mixed in, one is interested more in ethics of AI in policy and AI applications in government, and one is more data-science oriented.  I would say the CS curriculum will be more than you need to engage with the Harris policy evaluation coursework, but if you're interested in policy eval particularly focused on new technologies and algorithms, it will prepare you really well to see through the bullshit screen that programmers sometimes put up around actually telling you what they're doing.

1 hour ago, hanburger said:

* How easy is it to talk with professors who aren't your instructor? Are researchers welcoming/open to a conversation about their research, even if you aren't one of their phd students?

So this one really depends on department and prestige levels. Harris people 100% definitely, although super fancy Econ profs might take longer to get on their schedule. I've emailed profs after talks they've given to chat more and they've been super open to talking more. Computer Science faculty maybe, but ideally leverage an intro from another prof. That being said, if you talked to Anne Rogers (or any other CAPP faculty) about your interests, they would def refer you to the right people around the department.

1 hour ago, hanburger said:

* Maybe 40% of people I met at admitted students' week (for all of Harris, not just CAPP) were coming from private sector/management consulting. Would you say that's ~on par with CAPP (or maybe it was just a random virtual sample thing)? No shade on any career choice! Just want to make sure my sense of the student body is accurate.

Gotta admit, I laughed out loud at this. This is def a bit of a Harris bias-- because UChicago has such an econ rep and Harris in particular has a bit of an econ rep among public policy schools, it sometimes feels like literally everyone has an econ degree and did econ or management consulting.  (I include myself in that as someone who has an econ degree and did public sector consulting...) I would say CAPP has intentional variance on that front and I haven't found it to be an overwhelming number of people. I think the early-admit sample skews high because the performance management cycles of those companies skew towards encouraging earlier applications. I would put the actual % somewhere between 20-30% for Harris and CAPP, maybe up to 40% in Harris if you count people who have done international finance or some such. Very back of the envelope estimate though. I would also say that people self-sort via student orgs into those who are planning to return/enter those fields vs. those who never plan on doing consulting and/or left consulting to do something else. (I would put myself in that group-- I have no interest in going back).

Edited March 9, 2021 by ellien575
clarified a point in second chunk

[MPP_2021_l]

I'm admitted for the MPP program, but am wondering what you like the most/the least about Harris generally. Is there anything you wish you had known before you attended?

Also, as someone who is wondering about the opportunity cost of going to grad school instead of continuing to work in policy - to what extent do you think your MSCAPP degree has/will create career opportunities that you would not have had otherwise?

Thanks so much!! 

[undergoat88]

30 minutes ago, MPP_2021_l said:

I'm admitted for the MPP program, but am wondering what you like the most/the least about Harris generally. Is there anything you wish you had known before you attended?

Also, as someone who is wondering about the opportunity cost of going to grad school instead of continuing to work in policy - to what extent do you think your MSCAPP degree has/will create career opportunities that you would not have had otherwise?

Thanks so much!! 

In my mind I said to myself, "read: is it (harris' price tag) worth it"

[hanburger]

5 hours ago, ellien575 said:

For a sampling, of my closest five CAPP friends, one is looking at data journalism and journalism in general, one is interested in data engineering roles, one is interested in software engineering roles with some data science mixed in, one is interested more in ethics of AI in policy and AI applications in government, and one is more data-science oriented. 

Sounds like an extremely cool group! And thank you so much for the response, this is really helpful. Makes sense about consulting and the CS curriculum. And great point about CAPP professors helping with intros... the opportunity to meet some of the professors at Chicago broadly sounds pretty unique, so I'm glad to hear it's possible (done strategically :D)

Thank you again for taking the time to answer!

[ellien575]

7 hours ago, MPP_2021_l said:

I'm admitted for the MPP program, but am wondering what you like the most/the least about Harris generally. Is there anything you wish you had known before you attended?

Most: Definitely the community. Harris students are very, very friendly and I've met people with really different interests here who have fundamentally influenced my views on different social issues. I went to undergrad in DC (international affairs & econ major) and though the internship opportunities were excellent, I got a very federal-oriented view of policy and my classmates were very focused on that (and a bit overly competitive). Harris students have a pretty wide range of focus areas and it's much less federally-oriented than I was used to which was something I wanted from my masters.

Least: Harris can feel big if you struggle to find your niche. TBH the first years have my admiration, because I do not envy the struggle of making friends mostly remotely. Harris also has a larger core class component than many other programs-- I found all my core classes fun, useful, or both, so I didn't particularly mind, but if you don't want to take those classes, it's pretty hard to get them waived.

7 hours ago, MPP_2021_l said:

Also, as someone who is wondering about the opportunity cost of going to grad school instead of continuing to work in policy - to what extent do you think your MSCAPP degree has/will create career opportunities that you would not have had otherwise?

I'm a huge proponent of waiting to go to grad school until you feel like not doing so is an active impediment to your career. I almost applied to grad school like 2 times before this and each time realized that I wasn't really sure what I was trying to do or that I was sure that was the path I wanted. For me, I was reaching a point in my career where there was a natural inflection point (I was going to either leave my job or go to grad school, I knew I wasn't staying) and I was trying to do a soft pivot into more software eng oriented jobs. I was going to either have to self-study or bootcamp a bunch of skills to get my technical skills up to a better level, and I knew that I would probably eventually need a Masters to be more competitive if I wanted to go into gov eventually, so it seemed to be a good time where all those factors coexisted.

I think the pandemic also makes now really really weird. I don't know what life will look like in the fall, but I don't fault anyone for putting grad school off a year to try and get all-in-person teaching and/or because your job is particularly interesting right now.  MSCAPP was really important for my career pivot, but self motivating and studying during a pandemic can be rough depending on how you learn, your ability to self-regulate your work, and a lot of other factors.

 

[ellien575]

2 hours ago, hanburger said:

Sounds like an extremely cool group! And thank you so much for the response, this is really helpful. Makes sense about consulting and the CS curriculum. And great point about CAPP professors helping with intros... the opportunity to meet some of the professors at Chicago broadly sounds pretty unique, so I'm glad to hear it's possible (done strategically :D)

Thank you again for taking the time to answer!

No prob at all! The first-year CAPP professors are great-- Anne Rogers, Lamont Samuels, Aaron Elmore, and Nick Feamster are like, the dream team. Nick has some areas of research that I think are especially interesting to CAPP folks because he has some work looking at the homework/broadband gap in Chicago and is really interested in integrating his more traditional CS and Networks background into policy. They're all very approachable too.

[ellien575]

7 hours ago, undergoat88 said:

In my mind I said to myself, "read: is it (harris' price tag) worth it"

Lol very real consideration. From what I hear from people, Harris tends to come in between Georgetown and Heinz in terms of aid (it certainly worked that way for me). I think there are a fair number of people who have a strong or mild preference for Harris and end up weighing if the dollar differential between their Harris and Heinz scholarships is a worthy amount (of course there are also students who like Heinz more than Harris, but I haven't heard of Harris offering someone more than Heinz).

[kb_sf]

Any advice on negotiating funding? I received more from Heinz, and I’m  deciding whether to factor in cost of living differences when asking for an increase. Did you just use your scholarship as leverage, or try to make the point that Pittsburgh is cheaper (sooo much cheaper gah)?

Thanks for all your insight in this thread!

[ellien575]

On 3/12/2021 at 2:03 AM, kb_sf said:

Any advice on negotiating funding? I received more from Heinz, and I’m  deciding whether to factor in cost of living differences when asking for an increase. Did you just use your scholarship as leverage, or try to make the point that Pittsburgh is cheaper (sooo much cheaper gah)?

Thanks for all your insight in this thread!

Mostly just be straight with them-- they'll be reading a ton of these as they do every year. The most important factor is the amount of money Heinz offered you. The other stuff is fine to mention, but they generally know that. I think I ended up asking them to make up half the difference between the two scholarships and they got closer. Honestly not sure how much you ask for matters so much as the delta between the two offers.

Pittsburgh is definitely cheaper, although I've been pleasantly surprised with the cost of living here (caveat, I was coming from DC). There's a pretty wide range of apartments/rent amounts people pay depending on their budget. If estimated the range, I'm pretty sure I know people paying $700-900 and living with roommates and others paying $1500-$2000 for living alone in a fancy building.

And no problem! Grad school is an expensive investment and I feel like the lack of campus visits this year has made it harder than usual to get a real sense of each program. On the bright side, you won't have crazy amounts of branded water bottles everywhere from campus visits lol

[MPP2021app]

12 hours ago, ellien575 said:

Mostly just be straight with them-- they'll be reading a ton of these as they do every year. The most important factor is the amount of money Heinz offered you. The other stuff is fine to mention, but they generally know that. I think I ended up asking them to make up half the difference between the two scholarships and they got closer. Honestly not sure how much you ask for matters so much as the delta between the two offers.

Pittsburgh is definitely cheaper, although I've been pleasantly surprised with the cost of living here (caveat, I was coming from DC). There's a pretty wide range of apartments/rent amounts people pay depending on their budget. If estimated the range, I'm pretty sure I know people paying $700-900 and living with roommates and others paying $1500-$2000 for living alone in a fancy building.

And no problem! Grad school is an expensive investment and I feel like the lack of campus visits this year has made it harder than usual to get a real sense of each program. On the bright side, you won't have crazy amounts of branded water bottles everywhere from campus visits lol

Thank you again for answering all these questions. It's so helpful, especially when it's not possible to visit in person!

I would love to attend the MSCAPP program, but received an offer of 80% tuition from Heinz that's hard to turn down. I will be submitting an request for more aid from Harris soon. From your perspective, what is a reasonable ask/what is the max amount people have received? Should I just phrase it as "can you offer me something that's closer to my Heinz offer" or is it more effective to ask for a specific amount? Thank you!

[ellien575]

11 hours ago, MPP2021app said:

I would love to attend the MSCAPP program, but received an offer of 80% tuition from Heinz that's hard to turn down. I will be submitting an request for more aid from Harris soon. From your perspective, what is a reasonable ask/what is the max amount people have received? Should I just phrase it as "can you offer me something that's closer to my Heinz offer" or is it more effective to ask for a specific amount? Thank you!

Yeah, I hear that-- I was in a very similar situation. I'm honestly not sure if there will be a different result if you just ask them to get closer vs. ask for a specific amount. Though the form they give you may ask you for a requested amount? I forget. I think the most I hear of people getting is ~$25,000 per year but you might find more if you search the thread history/historical results on here. That's just from my small sample size of people I've talked to that were willing to give a number.

I do think it's worthwhile to think about what number is the inflection point for you and why-- it's up to you whether you want to communicate that to them or not, but I think choosing a time to do some thinking about that and ideally talk it through with someone is really helpful. Ultimately, it's a big financial decision and it can help to describe your rationale to a friend and get their more detached thoughts on the whole process.

[MPP2021app]

On 3/14/2021 at 10:26 PM, ellien575 said:

Yeah, I hear that-- I was in a very similar situation. I'm honestly not sure if there will be a different result if you just ask them to get closer vs. ask for a specific amount. Though the form they give you may ask you for a requested amount? I forget. I think the most I hear of people getting is ~$25,000 per year but you might find more if you search the thread history/historical results on here. That's just from my small sample size of people I've talked to that were willing to give a number.

I do think it's worthwhile to think about what number is the inflection point for you and why-- it's up to you whether you want to communicate that to them or not, but I think choosing a time to do some thinking about that and ideally talk it through with someone is really helpful. Ultimately, it's a big financial decision and it can help to describe your rationale to a friend and get their more detached thoughts on the whole process.

Thanks so much for the helpful response! 

[Cat1992]

Thank you so much for doing this! You previously answered some of the questions that I have been trying to find answers to for a long time now. I'm an admitted student too and have been debating because of the price tag...

Do you feel like the program may well prepare you for a data scientist position? And for someone who wants to be a data scientist in a non-profit sector, is it really beneficial to go through the PP side of the curriculum?

The reason why I'm asking is because I also got admitted to a Data Science program with a duration of 1 year and for a lower price. So I'm trying to see if there is a real benefit of me choosing the CAPP instead. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Cat1992

[ellien575]

No problem!

On 3/22/2021 at 9:27 PM, Cat1992 said:

Do you feel like the program may well prepare you for a data scientist position? And for someone who wants to be a data scientist in a non-profit sector, is it really beneficial to go through the PP side of the curriculum?

This is an interesting question-- I think there's a few aspects here that I'll address individually:

Does the program prepare you for a data scientist position? Definitely yes-- I would say this is actually the thing CAPP is set up best to do, because you do stats in Harris, basic CS, machine learning, and databases in CAPP, and then you can take whatever machine learning, data viz, etc. classes you want in the computer science department as well as other causal inference or other stats classes at Harris or other departments and it makes for a pretty well-rounded deep data science education if that's what you want to make it.

Is it worth it to do the public policy side? Depends on your background and interests. If you have an MPP from another school, I could imagine it would feel repetitive. I've actually quite enjoyed my MPP classes, and if you want to make them more technical you can definitely make choices that reflect that. (ex. my climate policy class actually involved a fair amount of work in climate models in R).

What are the trade-offs between a 1 year DS masters and CAPP? I definitely also was mulling this over when I was doing my grad school decisions. I think there's a few pieces here:

1. Curriculum: Do you care about your DS problems and curriculum being oriented around policy? I personally really struggle with quantitative coursework when it's abstracted from the concepts I care about, so for me this was a big decision point. If you just want a straight dose of DS curriculum and you don't mind making the connections from a marketing case study to your policy interests, that piece might not be as big of a factor for you.
2. Classmates: Do you want to be surrounded by policy-oriented people? Or do you want more private sector folks to get exposure to that side more? CAPP people do sometimes go into more commercial work, but the curriculum is structured around policy and that's what most folks are oriented towards. If you want more of a business side and/or that's not a concern for you, then this might tip the balance.
3. Money: Tbh not much to say here. CAPP will probably be more expensive especially with 2 years vs. 1 and debt is a very individual calculation. I will say there are opportunities to make money on the side while at CAPP, but they're definitely not equal to the money of another year working at full salary

Hope that helps!

 

[Cat1992]

On 3/24/2021 at 1:52 PM, ellien575 said:

No problem!

This is an interesting question-- I think there's a few aspects here that I'll address individually:

Does the program prepare you for a data scientist position? Definitely yes-- I would say this is actually the thing CAPP is set up best to do, because you do stats in Harris, basic CS, machine learning, and databases in CAPP, and then you can take whatever machine learning, data viz, etc. classes you want in the computer science department as well as other causal inference or other stats classes at Harris or other departments and it makes for a pretty well-rounded deep data science education if that's what you want to make it.

Is it worth it to do the public policy side? Depends on your background and interests. If you have an MPP from another school, I could imagine it would feel repetitive. I've actually quite enjoyed my MPP classes, and if you want to make them more technical you can definitely make choices that reflect that. (ex. my climate policy class actually involved a fair amount of work in climate models in R).

What are the trade-offs between a 1 year DS masters and CAPP? I definitely also was mulling this over when I was doing my grad school decisions. I think there's a few pieces here:

1. Curriculum: Do you care about your DS problems and curriculum being oriented around policy? I personally really struggle with quantitative coursework when it's abstracted from the concepts I care about, so for me this was a big decision point. If you just want a straight dose of DS curriculum and you don't mind making the connections from a marketing case study to your policy interests, that piece might not be as big of a factor for you.
2. Classmates: Do you want to be surrounded by policy-oriented people? Or do you want more private sector folks to get exposure to that side more? CAPP people do sometimes go into more commercial work, but the curriculum is structured around policy and that's what most folks are oriented towards. If you want more of a business side and/or that's not a concern for you, then this might tip the balance.
3. Money: Tbh not much to say here. CAPP will probably be more expensive especially with 2 years vs. 1 and debt is a very individual calculation. I will say there are opportunities to make money on the side while at CAPP, but they're definitely not equal to the money of another year working at full salary

Hope that helps!

 

Thank you, this is incredibly helpful! Exactly what I was looking for  

[ellien575]

Hey folks! Reviving this for this next year's round of applications. Anyone have questions on CAPP, feel free to drop them by.

[IndominusTaco]

18 hours ago, ellien575 said:

Hey folks! Reviving this for this next year's round of applications. Anyone have questions on CAPP, feel free to drop them by.

Thanks for talking about your Harris experience. I'm apply for the MPP program so my questions are about Harris in general. I'm assuming you must have graduated by now, correct? Did you end up landing a good job post graduation? How did Harris help in the job search, did you utilize their network at all? And at what point during your time at Harris did you begin thinking about/preparing for your post-graduation career?