UPenn Master's in Applied Positive Psychology: Worth it?

[Suraj_S]

60k (not including travel, boarding, or living costs) for a yearlong, 10-weekends-at-Penn, designed for full-time-professionals master's degree program, with distance learning and a capstone project (thesis, book prospectus, workshop, intervention, ...). Strong reputation in the field of positive psychology, strong reputation as a school to the general public (particularly as business goes), great for relatively mainstream networking. Most people working in relation to and studying in the program work (or go on to work) in clinical, organizational, social outreach, and academic settings. Once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend an Ivy League. All of these appeal to the decider in question, here.

 

From a professional [private and public sectors, government, non-profit, healthcare (in which the decider now has a year of business/clinical operations experience)] and not exclusively academic perspective, and for someone with no debt at age-23: Is this investment--assuming accumulation of at least 30k+interest in debt, and either working full-time (with possible, but not-guaranteed 10k tuition reimbursement) or attending a different, new, four-years-funded-and-stipended psych PhD program simultaneously--worth it in the long-run? Assume that the decider has no exact idea of what job-specific outcome they'd prefer, other than that their primary interests include research, writing, publishing, conferencing, teaching, science and philosophy, social betterment (viz., public outreach and clinical/social program design and initial implementation), and computers(/AI). 

 

Said person would most like to be a full-time university professor with tenure, but recognizes the job market as difficult; without guarantee; and demanding viable backup contingencies, and would prefer to not have to go either the adjunct or working-at-K-12-school route coming out of things. Think tanks, liberal arts colleges (prof'ing, not administrating), industrial/governmental research settings, NGOs, and non-profits also interest this person as possible places to 'end up'.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Zinnia_SX

[juilletmercredi]

I have a hard time understanding your question and the exact parameters of your decision, but I'm going to say no.

 

If you want a PhD in psychology with the end goal of being a professor of psychology at a college or university, then you'll need to go one of two paths. If you already majored in psychology in undergrad and had a decent (3.3-3.5+) GPA, and some research experience, then you'd be better off applying directly to funded PhD programs that provide a stipend and cover tuition. If you have the psych major but no experience, you'd be better off working as a research assistant or lab manager for 2-3 years to get that experience and then apply directly to a psychology PhD program.

 

If you have a low GPA (< 3.0-3.2), or didn't major in psychology in undergrad, then an MA might be a good move. However, you still don't want to go to the Penn program - not because it's not good, but because in order to get the letters of rec and the research experience that will make you competitive for a PhD program, you really need to go to a brick-and-mortar program with at least some face-to-face coursework so you can forge relationships. (I'd also like to take this time to note that you'd need a PhD to teach at a liberal arts college, too.)

 

If you'd like to go into some other field - like working at a think tank, government research, NGOs, or nonprofits - you can probably do that with the MAPP, but I don't necessarily think that the MAPP would land you there, if that makes sense. Honestly, the better degree for those things would probably be a master's in public policy or public administration, perhaps international relations if that's your interest, or even a social science research degree if you wanted to work as a research associate (but even that could be accomplished with an MPP or an MPA). Those degree are more marketable and the career services provided are more set up to find you a post-program job.

 

From reading around the MAPP webpage, the emphasis really seems to be on people who are already working and intend to stay in their current jobs but just want to enhance them with some knowledge of positive psychology for whatever reason. All of their featured alumni stories reflect that. They are all people who are not using the MAPP to do anything in particular - their jobs are all jobs that they could do without it, or were already doing anyway, and absolutely do not require or recommend a master's in psychology. They just chose to get it for whatever reason and use the tenets in their work.

 

And now that I am re-reading your post, I think I understand your second paragraph - you were asking if it makes sense to do the MAPP at the same time that you are doing a PhD program in psychology. Do not do that. It makes very little sense, and you won't have enough time to really focus on a PhD program and do well in a separate master's either. If you want to study positive psychology, you could always seek out professors who have that interest or doing a visiting scholar stint at Penn or something in your PhD program. (Also, I would expect a PhD in psychology to take 5-6 years, not 4.)