United Nations University, anyone?

[Fante]

Hi everyone,

 

I was admitted to the UN University in Maastricht, The Netherlands for their Msc in Public Policy and Human Development. I was wondering if anybody else has looked into this program. Most people I have met don't even know the UN has its own school. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks!

[lfkrebs]

Hey Fante,

 

I'm the academic program director for that program (feel free to verify, you can reach me here). Nice to hear you got accepted!

 

You're right, few people know that the UN has its own university, even though we were established in 1972 through UN GA Resolution (A/RES/2951 (XXVII). The reason is this: UNU was initially meant to be a think-tank, not a teaching university. We only started moving in this direction in 2010, after a December 2009 amendment to our charter by the UN General Assembly (A/RES/64/225).

 

The program you are going for is actually older than this: it's roots go to 2000, when the ILO was looking for a partner to train people in Social Protection particularly. This lead to the foundation of the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance in 2004 and the launch of this program in Feb. 2006. We merged with our local UNU branch in 2010 and are now offering courses equally between Maastricht University and several UNU institutes including CRIS (Brugges, Belgium), MERIT (Maastricht, Netherlands) and EHS (Bonn, Germany). We have guest instructors from all over the world, including the Maxwell School at Syracuse, the Oxford Migration Institute, the ILO, …, covering IOs, national and sub-national public bodies, NGOs, consultancies, etc. We are members of APPAM and NASPAA, are fully accredited in the Netherlands and are about to pursue NASPAA accreditation as well. At the moment, our program is ranked #1 in the area of political science and public administration in the Netherlands based on student and alumni survey and expert assessment.

 

In comparison to US schools, we are young and — thanks to our pending FAFSA listing — not well known in the US. But we regularly have US American students, and students from many other places: here's a map I map I made of our incoming applications last summer.

 

I don't know where you are geographically, but in case you are coming to Europe in the spring, drop by and be a student for a day. We'll get you into some classes so you can meet our current students and see how things work (not just the glossy brochure view of things).

 

Meanwhile, feel free to ask me things here!

 

Cheers,

Lutz

 

PS: I am presently traveling, so I might be a little slow in replying.

[Fante]

Thanks a lot for all this info Lutz! I definitely like UNU-MERIT's program and mentality and the fact it is so diverse. I definitely can see myself being a student there. However, I am mainly worried about the job opportunities after graduating. I have talked with a few people who work in the field of international development, which is my area of interest, and they've all told me that the school's name and reputation matter a lot because you're competing with people from LSE, Hertie, Harvard, Georgetown, etc. for jobs.

 

What does UNU-MERIT offer that other schools don't?

 

Thanks again for taking the time to respond!  

[lfkrebs]

Sorry for the slow reply, Fante! Travel and workshops don't make for the best connectivity…

 

You are completely right to consider the name recognition and reputation of the school you are going for! When looking at academic rankings for (economic) development, we're known, but not ranked as highly as some of the institutes you are considering (RePEc has us as 75th world-wide, between Cambridge and Toronto). Our speciality in terms of economic development is innovation economics, where we just recently lost the number 1 slot to NBER. (Admittedly, they have five times as many authors, so we aren't ashamed of being listed 2nd world-wide, ahead of Harvard, Yale, the IMF and MIT. Still, we were very proud of being ranked first for a couple of years. In this field, we also have three scholars in the world-wide top 20. We are understandably happy abut this, given that our UNU branch in Maastricht just turned 25 and is in the same league as much more established and better funded universities.

 

I also think that your home institute's network and direct links between practitioners and students are important ways of generating leads for future employment. I feel we deliver on this count: last year, we had 109 instructors for 94 students, including people from the World Bank and OECD that would be directly relevant to you. We work in small groups, so you come into close contact with experts particularly during the specialization semester. Our students also regularly go on a field trip to Geneva, where they visit the WTO and other UN branches. Finally, our students are invited to write their master thesis with a future employer — which several people in the field of development did last year. (On average, more than half our students have an outside supervisor, but their spread across multiple fields.) We always pair an in-house second reader with a supervisor at the target organisation such as UNDP. The external supervisor is paid by us and receives information and guidance from us on the thesis process, to ensure that the supervision is of use for the student and of sufficient academic quality, while stimulating you to work on a relevant topic with a potential future employer.

 

Depending on what kind of questions you might have in the broader area of development, I believe we can be a good institute for you — but there are also some parts of development were I would advise you to pursue your studies at an institute that is better suited for that topic.

 

How about this: I'm on the east coast in mid-May (likely New York, DC and Syracuse). If you can be at any of these locations, we can meet in person and discuss this over a coffee or a slice of pizza. If your elsewhere, we could always Skype. We can figure out where you'd like to go, and I can tell you what activities are in our program that will get you closer to your goal.

 

Have a nice day!

[yeskay]

Hi,
I am a student from India.

I have graduated in mechanical engineering and am currently working as a data scientist ( since 8 months)

My undergraduate thesis was on " analytics on electoral poitics"

I have done two internships with two different Members of parliament of India.

I am unsure whether to apply for UNU

Kindly comment

@lfkrebs