SAIS/Maxwell Student Life Advice

[grassband]

Hi all,

This year I received admission to both SAIS and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. (Although I am also looking at other places, I think that restricting things might be helpful.) In looking at these threads, I was found a relative dearth of comments about student life at these schools. Funding will be relatively equal at both of these places for me, so I'm hoping that respondents can tell me a little more about the student life at SAIS and Maxwell.

My first impression (which could very well be wrong) is that while Maxwell, through it's website and admissions staff, tries to evoke a "friendlier, fuzzier" atmosphere, SAIS seems to be the more serious of the two. Do people think that both schools offer a relatively good school-extracurricular balance? Or do things tend to revolve around school?

Also, do any current/former students have opinions about Maxwell being integrated into the broader campus, while SAIS is on its own?

Lastly, I am 23 right now. Maxwell seems to have quite a few young people, however SAIS' average age is 26-27 with substantial work experience. I realize that a good portion of SAIS' class is young, it seems to be skewed older. Do students find this advantageous, disadvantageous, or simply not matter much?

I'm overseas right now, so I won't be able to visit these schools before the deadline, so any advice would be really helpful!!

Thanks!

[MaxwellAlum]

I was in a similar position last year (unable to visit schools) so I can definitely relate. I'm a current dual MPA/IR student at the Maxwell School and I can attest to the fact that it's a very friendly place, in the sense that the faculty and admin staff really care about the students. Faculty make themselves very available in terms of helping students to learn the material and providing support and connections for the job search, and the admin staff tend to do their very best to solve crisis situations such as "my computer froze right during registration and I didn't get into the super popular class I wanted".

Student life is very active, both in terms of IR/policy oriented activities like organizing conferences, fundraising for charity, volunteering with the local refugee community and with a local citizen engagement nonprofit, and strictly social activities like wine tours in the Finger Lakes or various kinds of parties. As someone who is not historically much of a joiner, I've been surprised by how involved I've gotten (though I'm definitely not able to attend even half of the events I'd like to). I think that the balance is pretty good; you definitely have to study hard and it's nearly impossible to keep up with all of the readings (this does vary depending on the professor, of course). I've never thought to myself "gosh, I wish I had more school work".

In terms of being integrated into the broader campus, I don't really have anything to compare it to. I interact mostly with people from the Maxwell School, but I know some people have benefited from taking classes at the law school. It's nice to be able to easily attend university-wide events like basketball games and prestigious lectures (e.g. Nicolas Kristof).

As far as age goes, I've noticed the MPA crowd is older than the IR crowd. As a 27-year-old I definitely appreciate being around others with work experience in the MPA program. I can't speak much to the opposite experience.

If you'd like to know more I'd recommend calling/emailing the admissions office and asking to be connected to current students and especially alumni. There's a few people out there who have done a joint degree with SAIS (MPA at the Maxwell School, IR at SAIS) so they might be able to help you to make a decision also (though definitely don't make a decision based on just one person).

Hi all,

This year I received admission to both SAIS and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. (Although I am also looking at other places, I think that restricting things might be helpful.) In looking at these threads, I was found a relative dearth of comments about student life at these schools. Funding will be relatively equal at both of these places for me, so I'm hoping that respondents can tell me a little more about the student life at SAIS and Maxwell.

My first impression (which could very well be wrong) is that while Maxwell, through it's website and admissions staff, tries to evoke a "friendlier, fuzzier" atmosphere, SAIS seems to be the more serious of the two. Do people think that both schools offer a relatively good school-extracurricular balance? Or do things tend to revolve around school?

Also, do any current/former students have opinions about Maxwell being integrated into the broader campus, while SAIS is on its own?

Lastly, I am 23 right now. Maxwell seems to have quite a few young people, however SAIS' average age is 26-27 with substantial work experience. I realize that a good portion of SAIS' class is young, it seems to be skewed older. Do students find this advantageous, disadvantageous, or simply not matter much?

I'm overseas right now, so I won't be able to visit these schools before the deadline, so any advice would be really helpful!!

Thanks!

Edited March 29, 2011 by SyracuseStudent

[billyzy]

I am in the same boat as I am 23 and have limited professional experience. The concerns that prevent me from making up the decision to go to SAIS is the absence of an actual campus and seriousness/business-minded people (well, maybe a professional program is expected people to be so.). Apart from that, SAIS really enjoys the best location and has good focus on quant.

Would appreciate any ideas on this.

Candidate from China.

Hi all,

This year I received admission to both SAIS and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. (Although I am also looking at other places, I think that restricting things might be helpful.) In looking at these threads, I was found a relative dearth of comments about student life at these schools. Funding will be relatively equal at both of these places for me, so I'm hoping that respondents can tell me a little more about the student life at SAIS and Maxwell.

My first impression (which could very well be wrong) is that while Maxwell, through it's website and admissions staff, tries to evoke a "friendlier, fuzzier" atmosphere, SAIS seems to be the more serious of the two. Do people think that both schools offer a relatively good school-extracurricular balance? Or do things tend to revolve around school?

Also, do any current/former students have opinions about Maxwell being integrated into the broader campus, while SAIS is on its own?

Lastly, I am 23 right now. Maxwell seems to have quite a few young people, however SAIS' average age is 26-27 with substantial work experience. I realize that a good portion of SAIS' class is young, it seems to be skewed older. Do students find this advantageous, disadvantageous, or simply not matter much?

I'm overseas right now, so I won't be able to visit these schools before the deadline, so any advice would be really helpful!!

Thanks!

[grassband]

Thanks SyracuseStudent for responding, and your suggestion is an excellent one!

If I may ask, what clinched you decision to attend Maxwell, and have there been any disappointments during your time there?

[SaraDC]

For some perspective about being a younger student at SAIS - I turned 21 during my year in Bologna (I was there as one of a few JHU undergrads). I never had any problems "fitting in" on campus. If anything, I got to benefit from everyone else's experience - which helped me shape my own goals/plans in the future. Bologna is probably a bit more relaxed than the DC campus, but I think it's worth noting that, regardless of which campus you're on, even though the average age is 27 there is a fairly wide distribution of ages in the program.

[MaxwellAlum]

On deciding to attend Maxwell, a lot of it was just intuition. I liked the idea of coming to a place like Maxwell which was ranked highly but did not have a brand like Harvard or Columbia -- something about that just felt right. In addition, the combination of the practical MPA and more interdisciplinary IR degree as well as the potential of the global programs on the IR side was really appealing to me. Also, after living in big cities for the past 8 years I was ready to move somewhere a little more low key; the other two options I was looking at were in larger cities. Finally, the funding, which included an assistantship that I felt (and I was right) might have some inherent benefits of its own, was a good incentive.

In terms of disappointments, I wouldn't say there have been any major ones. Most of the teaching here is wonderful, however there have been a couple of "bad professors", which I think occurs anywhere. When I was writing out my course plan I realized I was more limited than I thought I would be in my course choices because I wanted to make sure to avoid those classes where I knew the teaching wouldn't be as good. I know that some of my classmates were really excited about a particular class (which has a very exciting title) and they were disappointed when the teaching was not as great for it.

Another issue more specific to Maxwell is that when you come to the IR program you're told about all of these global programs in exciting places, and some of them are really excellent. However, again I realized when I came in that my choice of global programs was more limited than I thought it would be because some of the programs have been created for, and are more suitable for, undergrads (for example, they might have a very short internship component). As a counter-example, I am doing the Geneva program this summer (which is exclusive to grad students) and will be interning with a UN organization. This has been surprisingly easy to arrange and I've gotten a lot of support from faculty to do it, so this has been an extremely positive experience so far. In addition, the school and faculty will be happy to provide support for you to pursue internship opportunities outside of the global programs.

Finally, the weather really is brutal. At first the snow is pretty, then you get to the end of March and realize it's spring in other parts of the country, but still winter here. That can be frustrating.

In terms of good surprises, one is how amazing my classmates are. I don't consider myself to have the ideal resume for a public/international affairs degree and it's very cool to be in the company of so many people who have done really interesting and relevant things. In addition, the faculty is very supportive. This is across the board: I haven't come across a professor that was unwilling to help students out if it was in his or her power. Finally, there is an amazing number of activities that you can get involved in while you're here, and you won't have time to take advantage of them all (I mentioned a few of them in my previous message). Being in Syracuse is not the same as being in DC, but there are plenty of valuable, career-related things you can take part in.

Thanks SyracuseStudent for responding, and your suggestion is an excellent one!

If I may ask, what clinched you decision to attend Maxwell, and have there been any disappointments during your time there?

Edited March 31, 2011 by SyracuseStudent